Mendacium
by chaoticclueless
Summary: Ed isn't a hero. He wasn't going to let any government control him again. He hadn't planned on helping at all, really. Or: Ed wants his brother. Truth wants a favor. All For One wants power. And everyone knows what happens when men too arrogant reach for what isn't rightfully theirs. "Oh, of course some idiot is making homunculi in another world."
1. when the words

**A/N: Hello! Welcome to this disaster fuck of a story. Yippee. This is following the FMA:B storyline and the MHA anime.**

**Let's just start off with this- this is MY story, I get to decide what happens. I love reviews, yes, but even just one person yelling at me about how much this sucks or how much it's not following canon or whatever bullshit will absolutely ruin my day. You. Don't. Get. A. Say. (Let me clarify that constructive criticisms are welcome and appreciated, and saying you wish this or that will happen make me very happy and I might include them.)**

**There will not be any romance. No. Don't ask, I'm not writing that.**

**This is actually reposted onto here from my Ao3 account, I'm not stealing it, I promise. I apologize in advance for any grammatical or spelling errors, I tried my best. The whole thing won't be written in non-linear storytelling, but the first parts are so I apologize if it's too con****fusing. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own MHA or FMA:B, and I make no profit off of this. If I did, I wouldn't be here. Probably. DO NOT REPOST!**

**Without any further ado, onto the story!**

* * *

Tsukauchi Naomasa had expected a lot of things going into his first meeting with Musutafu's newest vigilante. Then he met with Aizawa outside the interrogation room, and he changed his expectations. According to the underground hero, he needed to brace himself for the unexpected, and that he made no sense sometimes.

So he thought he was prepared when he opened the door.

He wasn't.

Instead of a middle aged, bitter woman with a grudge against the world, he got almost the polar opposite. A young teen sat at the table, maybe thirteen at most. _This _was the infamous vigilante? What was the quirk that allowed a _child_ to take down a Noumu?

Then he looked up, and Noamasa's breath caught in his throat. Those weren't the eyes of a child, those were the tired eyes of a pro. In that moment, with his life on display, feeling like this kid was taking him apart atom by atom, he could only think one thing.

"Aizawa, why is he out of the cuffs?"

The crackling voice fills the speakers, sounding a strange mix of amused and frustrated. "Every time we put them on, he somehow gets out of them. We have no idea how."

The moment ended, and the boy rolled his eyes at the ceiling, giving off a strong feeling of apathy. "I can get the officer, but why are you here, scruffy? I doubt you're a police officer." His accent was vaguely European, with a tinge of otherness to his T's and W's. Naomasa took the other man's sputtering for the opening it was, and smoothly inserted himself into the conversation.

"Hello there. I am Detective Tsukauchi of the Musutafu Police Department, and I'm here to ask you some questions. Please answer honestly. I am obligated to inform you that my quirk is a lie detector, so I will know whether you are honest or not."

A sigh. "Yeah, yeah, I will be honest. No point in lying if you can tell, detective."

Oh, good, he was being cooperative. From what Aizawa had told him, he should expect that to change soon. "Alright. To begin, who are you?"

"Edward Elric."

_Truth-_

Naomasa hummed thoughtfully as he wrote that down, careful to not move too quickly. For all the apathetic, bored air Edward had, the detective had noticed when he tensed at every movement, more alert than anyone had a right to be at these ungodly hours of the morning. "Thank you for not lying, Edward. Where do you live?"

"Nowhere you will recognize."

_Truth._

Well, that was concerning. His hand wrote that down from muscle memory alone, the man's mind still caught on the dangerous implications both that answer and the child's evasion of it brought up. "…okay. How old are you?"

He was leveled with an unimpressed look, a steely tone and clipped words following. "I am sixteen."

_Truth._

Apparently, his shock had shown up on his face before he could quench it, because the teenager leapt from his seat, screaming unintelligible curses and what seemed like threats in another language. It wouldn't have been concerning, except for those unsettling golden eyes. They seemed layered, like a dragon's, shifting colors and hues in rage and frustration. It was unnerving.

Edward seemed to catch on to Naomasa's uncomfortableness, and sat back down with a smug look.

They went through question after question, and the vigilante didn't once lie, even though he refused to give a straight answer to some of the questions. Then the time was up, and Naomasa realized he didn't have any more concrete information then they did at the start.

So just before he closed his book, his eyes settled on the first note he had written, and he sat back down, once again the object of that golden stare.

He sighed. "Edward, you didn't answer my first question fully. I asked who you were, and you gave me your name. But that's not entirely correct, now is it." He had the kid's full attention now, with his aurum eyes focused unwaveringly on the detective, like a hawk stalking its prey. He met them.

"So, Edward Elric, who are you?"

The boy froze for just a second too long, then opened his mouth.

"I am… the Fullmetal Alchemist."

_**TRUTH**_

* * *

_The Being spread it's arms. "Why, little al~chem~ist, do you not like my deal? Would you rather settle your debt with blood, or with this teensy-tiny little errand?"_

_His boy scowled, but the Being could tell he was weighing the pros and cons. "You promise that I won't be gone at all for them? You'll return me to this exact time, with my arm, leg, and Al? And both of our alchemy?"_

_It laughed. Their alchemist was so funny! "This errand is worth more than that! Your teacher's toll, your commander's eyesight, now those as well are equivalent exchange." It's boy smiled with no amusement, all pointy teeth and sharp angles, a sad mirror of the Being's own grin. _

"_You can do that? For just a small favor?" Oh, so naïve. _

"_This isn't just a little favor. No, in another world there is a great man, blessed with power. But he is evil, deadly, and he took too much and gave too little. He refuses to come here, even for death, and is long past his natural date. Recently, he figured out how to make homunculi without visiting me, and instead combining multiple souls to create simple, mindless creatures, much like ones you have already faced."_

_The boy was now frowning, running his smart, little, mortal head through the implications. His eyes widened. "You want me to destroy the research. Bring him to you."_

_Oh, its alchemist was so smart! The Being clapped their hands in excitement. "Exactly! For this purpose, I'll give you some more information about the world, and a few helpful arrays, the cost being your arm, which I can replace with automail. Be warned, though, I'll remove that knowledge and return your arm when you complete the task. So be prompt!"_

_Did they scare him? No, the golden child just looked determined, though a little apprehensive. "Do you know what's going to happen?" he asked as if he feared the answer._

_He should. _

"_Of course, dear little al~chem~ist! After all, this is where all stories begin_

* * *

Shota could only look up. He couldn't move, could feel the blood pooling in the crater his body had made, every sense was fading.

But he could look, and he could still use his quirk. He could save his kids. He wouldn't let them get hurt until he himself was dead.

"You're so cool, Eraserhead."

"Hey, asshat!"

He recognized that voice. Of-fucking-course it had to be problem child #1.

And a hand of stone shoved it's way out of the ground, like an eldritch god come to life, and wrapped around the blue-haired villain. It would only last a short time before it was disintegrated, but it gave Shota the breathing room to blink, focus on staying conscious instead of fighting.

Did Midoriya even know he wasn't the first problem child? He didn't think so.

He felt himself being lifted, and a sad voice filtered in through the rush of blood and pain. "I'm afraid I don't know many healing arrays, but I can temporarily close your wounds. You can rest."

He blinked at a flash of light and a ringing sound, and didn't open his eyes again as he was set down on the edge of the stairs. Before his hearing cut out entirely, he was only able to catch a few cries of rage, inhuman bellows, and numerous crashes.

He struggled against the encroaching black, ever the stubborn fighter, but eventually the adrenaline faded away and he drowned in the numbness.

"_Truth, help him_."

* * *

_where they change_

Why were they fighting for him? They shouldn't shed blood on his behalf! Tenya felt his eyes tearing up, the only part of him he could move, as he watched his friends be beaten down again and again, only to get back up and keep fighting.

For him. Useless him, who got them all into this mess and couldn't even help.

"Oh! It's you kids again."

Everything froze, in a paralysis even stronger than Stain's quirk, shock. Midoriya was the first one to break out, but he still didn't move, staring in wary curiosity at the short figure in the alleyway entrance.

"It's you. Fullmetal, right?" Tenya finally understood. So this was the vigilante who had shown up at the USJ and fought the villains? He didn't look like much, in an obnoxiously red trenchcoat, black clothes and boots, and pristine white gloves. The only thing vaguely menacing about him was the mask of twisted metal that covered his whole face.

Or not, as it seemed to melt down his face into a half mask covering his mouth with a flash of blue light, revealing sparkling golden eyes. Was metal supposed to move like that?

Even though he couldn't see the vigilante's mouth, it wasn't hard to imagine the snarl, especially when an inhuman growl echoed through the alley. The piercing eyes narrowed in cold fury.

"Stain. Why are you working with the League? I thought I told you how much of a bad idea that was. And attacking kids? Low, even for you." Each word was punctuated with a step, his left leg sounding a bit strange on the stone floor. Stain took a step back, and suddenly Tenya found he could move again.

Stain gave an answering glare, but very obviously didn't attack. "What are you doing here, child? This is my territory, and I need to dispose of these fake heroes. I'd prefer not to harm children, especially one as heroic as you, so leave."

Tenya tensed himself to get up, but one look at the dangerous vigilante in front of him, and he decided against it. He had obviously been mistaken before when he said that the boy seemed harmless. The color of his coat blended with the blood on the dark ground, the gloves were spotless in the dirty alley, the black clothes made him look like a demon that absorbed the light.

And the mask, he just realized, looked like a sharp smile from this angle, so out of place in the murderous aura that it seemed to fit perfectly. "Killing kids, huh? Asshole, you say you're doing good? Nothing good can ever come of death, the end never justifies the means. I won't let you kill anyone else, Mr. Edgy Vigilante.

Stain took another step back, and suddenly he wasn't the most dangerous person in the area.

The hero killer lunged forward with a pair of knives, and Fullmetal didn't even bother to move. One knife lodged itself in his right arm, and the other was caught in that same hand. His left hand rested lightly on Stain's face, glove off. The villain stayed perfectly still, for some reason that Tenya couldn't fathom.

Both knives clattered to the floor, suspiciously blood-free. The hero killer gaped, still held in place by the teenager. "How? I cut you, where's the blood?"

Those dangerous eyes glinted with misplaced amusement, and he set his golden gaze on the man in front of him, frozen.

"Metal arm, bitch."

* * *

_and where they end."_

Katsuki wasn't mad because he was tied up. Backwards as it may seem, he was actually a bit impressed, if begrudgingly, at the sheer audacity his kidnappers obviously had. To tie him up was ballsy as shit, since they knew that once he got free, he was gonna blow their motherfucking faces off, but he certainly wasn't impressed by the stupidity of his captors.

He was impressed by the figure next to him.

While Katsuki may only have restraints around his middle and extremities, as well as the manacles and gag (biggest mistake of their fucking lives, he was going to burn this crappy bar down when he got free), the kid next to him was absolutely _covered _in bindings. His hands were suspended in the air, separated, and his feet were off the ground. Plus, he was covered in bruises and other wounds.

The unconscious teenager must have done something especially bad to get this kind of restraint, and judging by the bandages on Shigaraki and most of the other villains, Katsuki could tell the kid put up a real fight before going down.

Things were quiet, until the seriously fucked up other boy groaned, and raised his head groggily. He looked mildly alarmed at his bonds, before rolling his eyes at the apparent overkill (Katsuki was liking this boy more and more). A few half-hearted tugs followed, before Goldilocks finally noticed him. His eyes went wide with fear that quickly turned to pure rage, which Katsuki was perfectly content to echo in his own crimson gaze.

After a half-assed staring contest, the other boy sighed, turning away. "Hey. You a UA student?"

"Mhmf."

"Cool, cool. You wanna leave now?"

"MMHFM."

It must have been the weirdest conversation Katsuki had ever had, and that was saying a lot. Pretty boy seemed perfectly at ease being kidnapped and waking up with severe wounds, which brought up some uncomfortable questions.

"Name's Edward Elric, by the way," the teen said as tried to roll his shoulders fruitlessly, the European accent blending strangely with the matter-of-fact tone. Like he would care about this extra's name! Now, if he managed to get himself free, then he might be worthy of name privileges.

"Aha!"

And right on cue, Goldilocks' right arm popped, and a small hissing sound came from his hand. Suddenly, there was a small blade where his pinkie should be, easily slicing through the rope. A bit of awkward and painful-looking contortions left the blade scraping up against the glove on his other hand, where he pricked himself through the fabric. The boy then began to... doodle? Was this fucker actually drawing right now? They were in the motherload of shitty situations, why the hell was this moron painting on his glove with his own blood?

Why had Katsuki ever though this asshat might be a cool guy? Nevermind, he didn't. Useless waste of trash, they should have taken-

And there he stood, all 4'9" of little kid, somehow free of his bonds. He carefully removed the gag from Katsuki's mouth, and it took all his willpower to stay quiet. If he exploded now, literally or figuratively, they would be caught before even reaching the exit to this room.

When all his bonds were off, he stood and stretched, unable to prevent a manic, bloodthirsty grin from breaking out over his face. He cracked his knuckles.

"Hey Elric, name's Bakugo. I'm about ready to blow this place sky-fucking-high. Wanna help?"

The teen stood up, wounds somehow almost entirely closed. He looked positively exhausted, but returned the smile tenfold, close to a mirror image of Katsuki's own.

"Oh, hell yes. These bastards have kidnapped me twice in the past two months, let's burn this shitty place _to the ground_."

* * *

"_Now, of course! Some ground rules. First, you cannot explain alchemy as a science, and your power is now called Atomic Manipulation. You cannot teach anyone alchemy, and I can help a little bit with that. Secondly, you cannot tell anyone about me or the Gate, or Amestris, nor explain how to get there. Third, you cannot take a person's energy for yourself when coming back through the Gate. Are those reasonable? Hmm... you could be forced to tell them... Ah! I will put a failsafe so you will not be affected by compulsion quirks."_

_And as their boy fell, he didn't make a sound._

_The last thing Truth saw from Edward Elric was a smirk, full of determination and dark humor, composed of predator-like canines and white teeth._

_Maybe this was a cruel joke, the Truth thought. Defeating the two people who embody the boy's only philosophy, his whole life of give and take. _

All For One _and _One For All, _they mused. How... fitting. All is one, and one is all. _

_It (had) (has) (would have) to see this._

* * *

Naomasa looked at the paper in his hand, then up at Nedzu. Back at the paper.

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't fix the circle in his mind. His instincts screamed at him, that the circle was dangerous, that he should let it go, forget about it, leave the unnatural circle behind and move far, far away.

Why? He looked back up at Nedzu with a look of suspicious confusion. "What... what is this?"

The rat chuckled. "Oh, just a little present from Edward. He gave it to me before he left, said that if we ever needed help, we could draw the circle perfectly, activate it, and he would know to come help us, even if it comes with a price."

Naomasa looked back at the paper. "You think we need him for the 8 Precepts mission."

"I do. And that's the Truth."

Edward stood and dusted himself off. The new information sloshed around in his brain, and he had to take a moment to adjust to the... 'off' energy in the air. The alchemic energy he was used to feeling as an invisible pressure on his skin was nowhere to be found, and he felt exposed without it.

Oh, oops, he was still covered in wounds. At least Truth had left him with a functioning outfit.

Plus, he was in an alley, so he wouldn't get too many weird looks before he could fix his cuts and bloody skin. He clapped, envisioning the skin healing array he had just gotten, and couldn't help but marvel at the tingling energy under his skin, like the energy he was used to drawing from the Earth for his transmutations was now trapped in his bones. It felt invigorating, like he could do anything.

Is this what being a Philosopher's Stone felt like, all the time? No, it was a bit different, this energy more calm, from what he could remember of Pride's stone. The comforting pins-and-needles sensation had faded along with his wounds, but he could still feel it in the back of his mind, buzzing about.

He smiled happily.

Is this what a... quirk was? The limitless pool of energy that made him feel invincible? He noticed something odd, though. He doesn't remember learning this array, meaning it must be a new one. But what was it for? He brought the rushing, flowing feeling out to the tips of fingers, then released it without clapping, which shouldn't have worked unless...

He twisted as far as he could, and sure enough, there was now an array tattooed on his back, looking uncomfortably scar like. He could feel it, and when he touched it a jolt of energy shot through his nerves, topping off the alchemic energy pool in his soul. So this was how he was getting his energy! He fished for the array in his mind, and. Oh.

Okay, so this was an array that changed any ambient soul energy (quirk energy, right) in the air and manipulated it so he could use it. That was certainly interesting, but it brought up a lot of other questions that he didn't want to think about right now.

He stumbled out into the street, and, oh wow. It was one thing to be told about their advanced technology, and another thing entirely to be standing at the foot of a building as tall as the clouds, surrounded by people who each looked completely unique and special.

Wait.

Well, shit.

They were speaking a different language.

He disregarded the plan to avoid attention and groaned into his hands. It was so similar to Xingese that he could get the gist, but just different enough that he was having trouble ten seconds into a nearby conversation. And the writing system was completely separate.

It was time to find a library, if he could. He didn't know a thing about this place, and he needed a way to make money, a place to stay, food. Which he couldn't do if he didn't even know what currency they used.

If worse came to worst, he could always pawn off some old 'family antiques'. But that would have to wait, since his wounds weren't fully healed, just covered up with a thin layer of new skin. It would take weeks at least for him to be back in fighting order.

At least he still had his pocket watch, the comfortable weight at his hip and in his heart was soothing after the anxiety attack he almost had in front of basically God. Yeah, that fucker can kiss his atheist ass goodbye and give him presents, but it wasn't going to disguise the fact that he was pretty much blackmailed into helping.

He ducked back into the alley he had started in, and had just sat back down when he heard a crash. Something spiked in the ambient energy, and he scrambled to his feet, sticking his head around the corner, jaw practically hitting the pavement at the spectacle.

A large man stood on the high-tech train tracks, looking around wildly. Edward watched as the 'heroes' showed up, proceeded to beat up the 'villain', and then posed for the crowds with disbelief, more focused on the sou-quirk, right, _quirk energy_ he felt in the atmosphere. When the large woman in the skintight suit had shown up, it had spiked to a fever pitch, he assumed because people were using their quirks, as it also increased when the woody boy released his ~special attack~.

That was actually worth looking into. Was it possible he could permanently remove someone's quirk and give himself energy at once by tagging them with the reverse array on his back? It would be an effective way of dealing with criminals, and was an effective way of dealing with the pseudo-homunculi. He shook his head. That would kill someone, and he refused to kill.

Right, focus.

Even places like this had to have underground fighting rings, right?

That wasn't a terrible idea, actually. So what if Truth fucked him over with this deal? He was going to succeed. He had too, for Al. For Teacher, for the Colonel.

For himself.

Besides, if he could save lives while doing it, then it was worth the risk. He took a deep breath, and walked to the back of the alley. After a few moments of finding the right array, he clapped and pressed his hands to the edge of a dumpster.

Dirt fell to the floor, the carved metal mask shining brightly against the grungy walls. He clapped again, and a small array carved itself right over where his nose would go, so he could manipulate it at will. He sighed, and fixed it onto his face. It fit perfectly.

He would do anything for his brother. But he _refused _to take a life. He was here to save them, after all. He couldn't do that just looking like himself, his features were unique even here.

Fullmetal stepped out of his brick-walled starting point, already planning ahead.

* * *

The readings were off the chart.

What could cause this much of a spike? The doctor honestly didn't know, had no clue about the showed up in the middle of the morning rush hour, on a busy street, a few minutes before a villain attack. There was no way to pinpoint the energy readings.

Unfortunately, All For One didn't like that.

The doctor had one month to deliver the cause of the spike to All For One, or… well. Not 'or else', exactly, his employer was much more creative and detailed than that. More like 'or your entrails will decorate my newest Noumu's neck like festive garlands on a holiday, with your head as the present to rip the skin off of.'

So, yeah. The readings. Kind of important.

At least he had the ability to delegate. That brat Tomura and his babysitter have some use after all, and he could utilize the numerous other small-time villains they had acquired recently. Surely _someone _had to have seen something, with these readings, the doctor was surprised there weren't news reports about giant monsters tearing up entire cities.

What could even rip the fabric of space and time like this though?

Nothing like this had ever been recorded.

The doctor turned back to his work, still contemplating possible courses of action, but couldn't shake the unsettled feeling at his back.

An inhumanly wide, white smile crept at the corner of his mind.

* * *

The first night was spent under a store overhang, before he was kicked out in the morning. Thank Truth he hadn't been wearing his mask, or he probably would have gotten more than a few disgusted looks. He cleaned his clothes with a few claps under an overpass, to hide away the bright blue alchemic light, and set out on his search, mask resting heavily in his pocket.

Nothing.

The second night, it was under the same overpass as before. The third, a soup kitchen. And so on.

Did these people not have libraries anymore? Edward needed somewhere to stay, but few places would keep an unaccompanied minor in a room with no pay to show for it. A few days of living on the streets was not doing him any favors in the health or language departments.

He needed to find somewhere mildly illegal. Thankfully, being a State Alchemist has its perks.

He always knew where to find illegal stuff.

* * *

Dabi wouldn't exactly consider himself a regular at the bar, but the people there knew him, and he knew them. The owner had even offered him a job at one point (as a bouncer, of course, because who would take drinks from someone as hideous as he was?), which he graciously declined. All in all, it was a nice little hole-in-the-wall place that had reasonable rates for his broke ass and a very low chance of being found by any hero other than Eraserhead, Blind Eye, Gray, or some other morally-grey underground.

Honestly, if Eraserhead had found this place, he'd be more likely to sit down and get a drink than arrest any of the patrons or workers.

A chair flew over his head and broke against the wall, prompting a new wave of shouts as Dabi sipped his drink. _Well, maybe arrest some of them, _then _ask for alcohol. _

Just then, the door slammed open. A few people looked over, most disinterestedly, since the others were either drunk, passed out, in a fight, or some combination of the three. Dabi was still plenty sober, so he was the only one to really get a good look at the newcomer before losing interest.

He did a double take once his brain processed what he had seen, and he noticed the bartender do the same.

A kid stood in the doorway. A literal child had just kicked down the door with all the confidence of a top dog villain, not even flinching at the obvious violence or drinking, and the most coherent thought Dabi could put together was that he didn't care if he was supposed to be a villain, he was _not _going to sit by as a baby faced teenager drank themselves into oblivion.

His newest headache strode confidently over to the counter he was seated at, and began spewing barely understandable Japanese, nearly drowning everyone in earshot with his incredibly thick European accent. Dabi couldn't quite pinpoint it though, like a mix of French, German, English, and an otherworldly sharpness.

"Do you haf room me kan rhent? Me kan help as… ah, vat vas zee vord, guard? No, bounscher. Me kan fix zings ash vell." …and seems like he wasn't the only one feeling a little lost. The bartender, who Dabi knew was just an overworked college student whose parents had been on the darker side of the law, smiled awkwardly, like he didn't know whether to laugh, ask him to leave, or go hide in the back room and call the owners while crying.

After about a thirty-second pause of just, absolute silence, the boy rolled his oddly colored golden eyes and huffed, before turning right around and walking out again.

But the boy who willingly entered a known villain hideout, wearing half of a metal mask speaking broken Japanese never truly left Dabi's mind. So when he came there a week later, only to see the squirt standing outside the door protectively, wearing an insufferably smug look, he wasn't even surprised.

He made a beeline for the counter, where Koeke was cleaning cups, and knocked on the top. She looked up, followed his pointed line of gaze to the door, and snickered. Which was a bad sign, as she cared very little for human sanity.

"Oh, the kid. Yeah, I wasn't here when he first showed up, but according to Misaki, he was barely understandable, yeah? So then he comes back in like five days later during my shift, speaking very good japanese with not much accent at all, asking if he can work here for a place to stay and some money. Now he's our bouncer, since the last one got stabbed."

He… didn't know what to say to that. "You're sure that he can hold his own? He looks about 90 pounds soaking wet." Another snicker.

"Nah, that kid's surprisingly ripped. Broke up a bar fight yesterday, by the end he had only gotten hit once, while all three guys, professional villains, mind you, were unconscious in the corner. Apparently he had knocked one of them out only using his legs. Squirt's got a temper."

Dabi glanced once more at the door, contemplatively. A teenager who knew how to fight, hanging out in places like this, with a shady mask on? _Either a runaway becoming a villain or a homeless vigilante. Either situation isn't good._

Just as they both fell silent, the aforementioned kid strolled in through the door. "Off my shift. Hello, scarboy."

He didn't even bother to look at the flying chair.

_Definitely a vigilante._

"Hey, kid. Your fashion sense is horrible. I mean, red coat, yellow contacts and dye, black clothes? Tell me your name so I can report you to the fashion police." At least it got a snort out of him, muffled as it was by the metal mask.

"The name is Fullmetal, and I do not do dye or contacts, jackass." This time a bottle came flying out of the back corner, which the boy fumbled to catch before it socked him in the head. "I'll be right back, burned-bastard." Dabi was left sputtering as the kid turned around.

Koeke looked over. "Yeah, can you-"

"WHICHEVER ONE OF YOU CRACKHEADS DECIDED IT WOULD BE A GOOD IDEA TO LAUNCH THAT BOTTLE, PREPARE TO HAVE THIS BOOT UP YOUR ASS."

That was all Dabi caught before Koeke couldn't hold in her laughter, and collapsed on the floor shaking with the effort.

* * *

It hadn't even been two weeks since he was dropped here like an unwieldy sack of potatoes, and yet the self-proclaimed vigilante Fullmetal had already caught on to a few very important details.

Quirks are absolute bullshit, and he will gladly pronounce that to anyone within earshot. Hell, his current best friend over here was just a sucky Colonel Bastard when it came to power sets (And wow, wasn't that just depressing. His best friend was a tired 20-something year old villain with a flair for the dramatics and some messed up daddy issues [Not like Ed could complain, he'd met some shitty fathers.].).

Memes are pure hell and the internet is the vengeful god that allowed it to exist, and trust him, he has a love/hate relationship with a vengeful god. He would honestly not be surprised if the Gate demons were whispering bad 200 year old vine quotes as he passed by. He'd originally started looking into the internet after he had walked in to see Dabi… t-posing? Is that what it was called? And made the mistake of asking about it.

This society is even worse than Amestris'. Which was saying a lot, considering his home country was run by literal immortal monsters. Seriously though, the whole thing with heroes, and villains, and quirks… ugh. It was enough to give him a headache just thinking about it, not to mention trying to understand the clusterfuck that was Japan.

Well, at least he had a job now. That didn't involve illegal fighting rings or being a repairman forever. It had decent housing, plenty of easy-access (drunk) sources of information, and a few good friends.

Meaning he did feel a little bad about planning to hunt down some police officers or heroes for information, and opening the risk of leading the person back to his current living quarters. If the person Ed was sent here to hunt was so powerful and evil, then someone had to have heard of them, right? Maybe some of the professional people in muted colors he saw hanging around the underground sometimes, they should have the scoop about villains.

All he knew was that the 'villains' he saw on a daily basis don't know a thing.

Really, another thing he would feel compelled to fix. He stifled a groan in his head, mentally cursing his inability to leave well enough alone. Great, so not only did he have to kill an immortal bastard even trickier than Father, now he had to fix an entire society and people's outlook on things, as well as reform the lower echelons of the ladder to erase the concept of 'hero' and 'villain' from the social structure.

Some of the hardened criminals he saw constantly were only forced into this by others, or had to provide for their families. Did that make them evil?

Fullmetal didn't think so.

* * *

"I think I should go to U.A. The entrance exam is in like nine months, right?"

Dabi spit out his drink.

"... uh, kid, you do know that not only will you be a wanted felon in a few weeks, you don't have any papers, still haven't told us what your quirk is, and are living with straight up criminals. You wouldn't get through the door before being arrested."

Fullmetal pouted, mumbling something about doing it anyways, before straightening up. "Hey, Dabi, you know what I realized recently? If I do actually start vigilant work, I am going to need backup sooner or later." The golden-eyed boy gave him the most shit eating grin he had ever seen on a child's face, the request evident.

Yeah, he wasn't buying it.

"No way kid. Just because I'm not your stereotypical villain does not mean I'll ever be anyone's hero."

"Oh? Then why have you been coming here more recently, huh? It could not have been just to see little old me." He had to hand it to him, only a few days of perfecting the language and the kid had the inflections almost perfect. Ha! Jokes on him, Dabi lost his feelings years ago.

But on the other hand, this was one of the first people (no, straight-up villains didn't count) who didn't immediately flinch away from his burned features and abrasive personality. He didn't want this tiny buff child to _die._

Damn it, he planned this, didn't he? Dabi groaned and put his head on the table, ignoring the smug snickers next to him. "Bastard," he huffed into the table, and the snickers turned to full on whoops of victory.

He threw his hands up. "Fine, fine! I'll help you, at least until you figure out a way to get into U.A., which I don't doubt you will."

They both quieted down, listening to the background bar noises, before Fullmetal turned to face him, face completely serious. "Hey, Dabi?" He nodded cautiously, telling him to continue.

"If you go in the ocean, will the salt water corrode your staples and make your face fall off?"

"IF NOT FOR THE LAWS OF THIS LAND, I WOULD KILL YOU RIGHT HERE AND RIGHT NOW."

"COWARD, DO IT, I DARE YOU. WHAT LAWS? WE ARE VIGILANTES, WE DO NOT FOLLOW LAWS."

"... oh, yeah. Okay then."

"_No no no I take it back shit SHIT SHIT_-"


	2. weigh heavy on the heart

**A/N: Hi there! Please review and favorite, they make my day! Uh, sorry about the fake-out yesterday, I swear I uploaded the chapter but it just did _not_ want to work.**

* * *

This damn brat…

Despite himself, Shota couldn't help but smile at the boy in the interrogation room as he continued to be an unrelenting jackass teenager. He seemed to understand what was going on, and yet proved to be as unhelpful as possible.

He was distracted from the immensely amusing scene of Tsukauchi getting stared down by a petulant child by his phone buzzing, and he carefully maneuvered his bandaged hands to grab it. When he saw the message, he felt like laughing and crying all at the same time.

_King Rat: He's the one. Ran it through our application database, 99.9% positive match._

Oh, it felt so good to be right. Imagine if they had really… yeah, that would have been a disaster.

It wasn't that he wasn't thankful to the kid, the boy- Edward Elric, was it?- had saved his life back there. It wasn't even really the illegality of it, and although that was a pretty big sticking point, at least he could relate a little bit. Shota was borderline illegal anyway. No, it was the whole thing about how, you know, _this was a child. _

It didn't matter how skilled, how good his quirk was. How good of a fighter he was, how used to situations he was. None of that mattered, because last he checked, training child soldiers went against so many war codes it wasn't even funny. Some of the reactions and answers Elric was giving were like he was used to giving mission reports and spoke with the same flatness Shouta sometimes saw in police officers. The whole thing _screamed _of military. Which military, he wasn't sure, but it was still very much a war crime.

The country thing was bothering him too. How did a foreigner get into the country without leaving any record of it? They hadn't run the name or the face yet, but he assumed there wouldn't be any record of those either. Whoever trained this kid really wanted him off the grid. His quirk seemed immensely powerful, and well controlled. They could be dealing with a human weapon situation, meaning the government could not, under no circumstances, find out, or it would be anarchy as they try to find answers. Or worse, use the kid for themselves.

No, that wasn't a solution.

He tuned back into the conversation absentmindedly, bandages itching. Tsukauchi was asking a question, and Elric seemed really serious. From the answer and the pause afterwards, he could guess that the detective had asked something about the name.

Oh, no.

Fullmetal.

That was what they had called him, that man and the others. The only people who had those types of names underground were either villains, assassins, or legends. Normal vigilantes tended to have less outwardly aggressive names, especially those as young as this. Tsukauchi's expression said it all, and Shota resisted the urge to sigh.

Child soldiers, human weapons.

This was bigger than they thought.

* * *

"_There once was a boy who flew too close to the sun, on wings of wax."_

_The listener looked up sharply, the storyteller giving him a side-eye grin as he continued. _

"_He tried to reach the sun, tried to reach for what wasn't his, and paid the price for his insolence, for daring to disobey his father's warnings and doing what he thought was best. His wings melted from the heat of the sun, and he fell into the water and drowned. The story is meant to be symbolic, you know."_

_It was quiet, peaceful even, and so bright. He couldn't help but glance up in time with the words, imagining the boy falling from the heavens he put his innocence on the line to reach._

"_... but in my personal opinion, the symbolism is a little misplaced here. Is it the boy's fault, his naivety and curiosity that killed him? After all, the sun did nothing wrong by existing. The boy paid his price for the trespass he made, and he will feel the consequences of his actions for the rest of his life. It was, in the end, his own foolishness that allowed him to even be high enough to receive punishment for the transgression."_

* * *

_9 months earlier..._

The alley was dark and foreboding, perfect atmosphere for his debut. The mugger had absolutely no clue that he was there, and there was no one else around except for a camera on the corner.

Absolutely flawless.

Problem was, he needed to be closer to catch the guy correctly. He didn't think he was faster than the cheetah legs this guy had, and he was trying not to use his alchemy (Ugh, quirks were such _bullshit_. The first time Ed had finally found a bookstore, he must have spent over 48 hours in there reading up on the world and the language, and some of the stuff had made him double check that people weren't just creating chimeras out of half the people they met) on camera or in front of anyone, so that left a surprise attack.

Now, the famed Fullmetal Alchemist may be the perfect man for almost any situation, but there was a definite almost there. He was great at explosions, weapons, researching, threatening people, etc., but stealth was not on that list.

Seriously, Colonel Bastard, how in hell was he supposed to be quiet with two automail limbs and a penchant for frontal assault? And Al was even less stealthy, bless his armored heart, meaning he had very little practice with this.

To be fair, he had never expected he would be in this situation.

He carefully stepped around a small crinkly wrapper partially hidden by shadows as he was, and took a moment to assess the absurdity of it all. Here he was, in a different country in a different world, speaking a different language and becoming a 'vigilante' in order to beat information out of villains about the criminal equivalent of the bogeyman.

Yay for him.

On the outside, he was silent as he could be, but on the inside he had just finished up cursing out the Truth in Aerugonian and was moving on to what little Xerxsian he understood. Every now and then his leg or arm would make a little clanking noise, and he would freeze up for a tense moment before he noticed that the figure counting bills hadn't heard a thing.

He slipped behind a dumpster, directly behind the man now, and felt almost giddy that he had managed it. He carefully tensed up his lower body, gathering up the pure explosive power needed to catch this guy unawares, bringing himself low to the ground in order to spring at him and catch the dumbass.

And then his leg squeaked. Loudly. Like it was screaming.

Karma's a bitch. He knew he shouldn't have chased those pigeons earlier.

The guy- gosh, this guy was _old_, must be in his sixties or something, Ed was actually kind of impressed- snapped his head up fast enough to look like it hurt, whipping himself back and forth from the sheer urgency in his movements. He obviously didn't see anything, since Ed was hiding behind the dumpster (no, he wasn't short, he was quite the perfect size, _stop thinking he was short, Mustang you absolute insufferable bastard)._

Ed's target bent down to pick up the few bills he had dropped, probably intending to get the hell out of there before some upstanding citizens came to investigate. Honestly, Ed should do the same, because any sane person walking into a dark alley would certainly call for whatever passed for the cops here, if they saw him in a mask standing above another guy down for the count.

Yeah, going to jail is a big inconvenience. Honestly, he just needed to beat up the right people to get the right info, drag this world's equivalent of Father back to Truth, and reap the benefits of having his brother back, helping Teacher, keeping their alchemy, etc.

No way some low-life mugger was going to take that away from him.

Ed exploded into motion, going straight over the dumpster and tackling the criminal to the ground, where they tussled for a moment. Unfortunately, for all of his experience fighting, this dude had about a hundred pounds and two feet on Ed,and managed to get free and figure out how to stand.

Those damn legs-

Another mad leap to try and slow him down, but he was already in motion and the only thing Ed could do was try and chase after him before he got to a crowded street. This was the first lead he'd had since coming here (perks of working in a bar, and one for villains at that) and he was _not _going to lose it. But again, quirks were absolute bullshit, and this dude was seriously fast.

Ha! They were turning into a dead end, and Ed could see the exact moment the guy realized it. He was going way too fast to slow down, and he was about to hit the wall… before claws dug into the brick mortar and hauled him straight up it, just a complete spit in the face to gravity.

Quirks. They sucked. They made no sense.

Cheetah-man managed to stop himself on top of the wall, where he sat for a moment, assuming Ed couldn't reach him. Which he totally could, but the missed tackle had reopened one of the wounds from the Promised Day and he was really starting to feel it, something the criminal noticed if the taunting was any indication.

Or maybe he had just noticed that Ed was below his height level, which was stupidly freaking tall and in no way implied that Ed was anything more than average tall-ness for his age. There.

Right as Ed had finally pinpointed the array he wanted to use, the quirk-user decided that he shouldn't make himself an easy target for more than the two seconds he had already spent and turned around to jump off the other side.

No, no no, no. Ugh. Argh. Why was everything in his life such a mess?

A thump sounded from the other side just as Ed had finally gotten around to the few curse words he knew in this new Japanese, which startled him enough that he used the array he had gotten ready and shot himself up to wall height.

"Good thing I was helping you, huh? 'Thank you Dabi, you're the best!' Oh, it's no problem at all, my good friend."

Of course.

This world's resident pyro stood holding the unconscious mugger on the other side of the wall, looking way too casual and pleased with himself, even if it was a little hard to tell behind the vaguely apathetic air he kept up. Ed rolled his eyes at the drama and focused on his slightly shaky Japanese, for all of its weird sounds and unnatural pronunciations that he wasn't used to.

"Dabi, you are an idiot. I thought you did not want to help me, or were you just being an asshole and making it hard on purpose?"

The flame-boy coughed, a little sheepish now. "Actually, I was just walking by and saw him, and remembered that he was the guy you were looking for. Why do you need him?"

"I need him to talk."

Ed focused on the carved array on his mask, molding it with a little blue flash of light so it only covered his nose and mouth. He stepped forward and Dabi backed up, obviously a little unnerved by this literal child looking so eager to threaten someone into giving information.

The guy talked.

* * *

"_Or was it the sun's fault, for being oh-so tempting, for seeming to a lost child to be within reach? Can any person really be blamed for instinct? People are drawn to the unknown, just as they are afraid of it. It's simply human nature to reach for the stars, to find out what makes them what they are. Is a child's mistake worth the ultimate punishment of death?"_

_The storyteller held a pale hand above his head, looking up at the underside of it thoughtfully against the backdrop of the light sky. The hand-shaped shadow flickered on his face, the light fading in and out due to the changing light. _

_He sank into the empty, train of thought completely forgotten as he listened attentively to the unraveling tale._

* * *

"Who are you even looking for?" Dabi brought up the next day as Elric came in during a break. The younger of the two slipped into a seat, gently removing his mask and putting it in his pocket. He looked at Dabi with an incredibly deadpan expression, golden eyes as flat as he could make them.

"It is none of your trade."

Dabi pulled a magnificent spit take at both the words and the delivery, coughing for at least a minute while the bartender on duty just laughed, the shithead. "Fullmetal, I think you meant 'none of your _business_,'" he managed to wheeze out after his lungs stopped trying to tie themselves into knots.

Elric threw his hands up, muttering in that odd language of his until the bartender gained enough motor control to get off of the floor. Before anyone could say anything, the door opened and in stepped a shady figure in black, making Elric rush to slip his mask back on. Everyone else went right back to their conversations after a quick glance over, in this part of town people looking like that were practically common.

"-and I don't know what you want me to do, exactly, asshole, because I literally started learning this language like- mmph!" The bartender had quickly silenced Elric, taking one for the team, as the new figure took a seat at the bar right next to them.

"... can I have the most caffeinated thing you have?" The scruffy-looking man asked, and the bartender cautiously released their death grip over Elric's mouth to get him what he asked for. While he was waiting on the drink, the newcomer looked over to where Dabi and Elric had started a silent argument. A few seconds later, the owner popped her head out and gave a scathing glare to both of them.

"Hey, boy! I'm not letting you stay here for free, you get up off your ass and go do your goddamn job for once. Get away from the bar and stop talking to customers on work, you imbecile!" Everyone at the bar winced at the volume, and some of the regulars sent Elric a few pitying looks, as if Dabi should be planning his friends funeral.

Elric caught his alarmed glance. "She's not gonna kill me, relax. She's too much of a softie for that."

A very obvious cough sounded from the back, and his face went three shades paler. "O-on the other hand, I do like having all of my limbs attached." The little lunatic chuckled under his breath and murmured something inaudibly, before turning around to go back to work.

Dabi had almost forgotten about the stranger, but right then the bartender returned with something probably radioactive, judging by the expression on their face. Either that or it was straight snake venom, or a pumpkin spice latte, or something equally as bad.

He paid and sniffed the drink, cringing in that special way that only teachers, insomniacs, and new mothers can. A 'this may kill me but if I don't get the caffeine then I'll kill myself anyway' kinda charm. A glance at Elric as he walked outside was enough to get him to turn to Dabi questioningly.

"You seem to know that person." Dabi nodded, not seeing where he was going. "Why are they working in a bar in this side of town? And a foreigner at that?"

Huh. He… hadn't really thought about why Elric would go straight for the area of the city that had a big red sign pronouncing 'ILLEGAL STUFF HERE'. If he needed a place to stay, why didn't he get a room somewhere nice?

"I… actually don't know, really. Mysterious, but makes a good bouncer." The hobo-man looked displeased with that answer, but he knocked back half of his pond sludge with a grimace and Dabi couldn't help but feel mildly impressed with that, so all was cool on his end. The bartender finished cleaning one of the cups and leaned on the bar, looking questioningly at the newcomer.

"Oh, you talking about Fullmetal? Yeah, the squirt's real foreign, didn't speak a lick of Japanese when 'e first came here. Few days later, was practically fluent!" They laughed at the confused face of the man in black. "A real smarty, and boss has taken a liking. Got some serious height issues though."

Why did this dude look so familiar? It was nagging at the back of Dabi's head, just something about this guy… maybe he was a big time villain? Nah, seemed too concerned about Elric working here to be really evil.

Before he could figure it out, the newcomer paid in cash for his drink, then ambled away from the bar.

Ah, well. It would come to him.

* * *

It was a bar.

It wasn't enough that Shota was dragged out of bed at the ass crack of dawn to chase some new vigilante, nooooooo, of course the video trail lead him straight to a bar. Not only was the headache bad enough already, the first people he saw upon entering just so happened to match the basic descriptions of his perps. And they were both kids.

Okay, maybe the scarred one might be an adult, but he was younger than Shota and thus that argument was invalid, and he wasn't sure about the masked one. Speaking of argument, why were they shouting? Really, must every blonde he will ever meet be obnoxiously loud? It didn't seem that unusual to the patrons, which was upsetting because this person _was the height of a twelve year old __seriously._

And yeah, he had some doubts. You'd think that anyone trying to be a vigilante would know how to accurately avoid cameras, and for this person to get caught, then either they knew absolutely nothing about technology or did it on purpose. The first means… well, not anything good, but not earth-shattering. On purpose, however, means that this is probably a trap.

Goodie.

He was not awake enough for this.

He sat by quietly as they got yelled at by someone telling them to go back to… wait, did they work here? Shota _really _didn't like that. He also really didn't like the mask they were wearing as they walked by, which implied a lot of things that he didn't have the time to go into. Most importantly, that was the mask caught on film.

_Why_ did they look like a kid? He taught people older than that, he knew just how terrible teenagers can be.

The bartender seemed willing enough to share basic information, but the scarred man seemed a bit more wary, almost as if he recognized Shota. The suspicion was worth it though, and he got a few good tidbits he could share with the police. For example, the man sitting next to him was obviously the closest to them, and everyone at the bar knew them as Fullmetal, for some reason, but this dude seemed to know a different name, seeing how he needed to correct himself every time he talked.

If this person's best friend was an angsty college dropout who practically lives in a bar, then there was no hope. Nevertheless, his teacher instincts were screaming at him to at least try, and after a minute he forced his aching limbs to move again and paid in cash before slowly walking outside.

"You are new?"

He wasn't startled at the sudden appearance (a bright red coat will have that effect, seriously, why was it red?), but the very noticeable accent still caught him a bit off guard. Not many people here tended to have such a blatantly european accent.

"Yeah, I guess. Who are you?"

The masked vigilante gave a little sigh, very obviously unhappy with having to talk to someone. "My name… no, it really does not matter. Who are you?"

"I'm Shouta... Yamada." He cringed internally at having to use Mic's name, but whatever. "I assume you work here? How did that happen?"

A shrug. "I was down on my… luck, I suppose, and the owner was very kind enough to offer me a job and place to stay. What brings you here?"

"I'm new to the city, just exploring." They were matching him question for question almost offhandedly, like they subconsciously refused to let Shouta have the last word. "How long have you been here?"

"Not very long, I am new here as well. As you can see, I am really not from around here." They stressed the really, but without seeming embarrassed. The two stood in silence for a moment, except it was more contemplative silence than awkward, both sizing the other up. Shouta hadn't seen them without the mask, and he was really itching to see, but he realized he had already intruded far too much. He turned to leave with a muttered goodbye, and was halfway out the alley before the voice made him stop.

"Hey, wait a minute. Do you know anything about…" Shota turned back in time to see them pull out a slip of paper from some unseen pocket and frown at it. "... some villain named All For One?"

He could honestly say he hadn't, but the name was certainly ominous enough. "Can't say I have. I'll keep a lookout, how about that?"

* * *

"_Maybe neither of them are to blame. Perhaps the guilt rests on the father's shoulders. Yes, he gave warnings, but children cannot be held accountable for mistakes they make without knowing any better. The father should have talked to his boy, should have guided him and told him of the dangers and watched him and caught him when he fell and carried him to land. All of it could have been avoided if the father hadn't given his son the wings in the first place."_

"_Are you speaking of anyone in particular?" he laughed at the listener's sour look._

* * *

A quiet breath cut him off mid sentence, but the man wasn't stupid enough to try to continue.

"Are you telling me that you haven't found _anything_, even after the month I have so graciously given you? Even after I allowed you to use new recruits as searchers? That you have absolutely nothing?"

"W-well…" He licked his lips nervously. "We did get an abnormally high reading on someone who came in recently, meaning they probably spend a lot of time around the anomaly. I-I have set someone up to tail him… Master."

All For One eased himself back gently, seeming a little less mad, but also much more distracted. He waved at the doctor, who let out a silent sigh of relief. "I expect constant updates. Just because I can't kill you doesn't mean you get unlimited time. If this… anomaly is as powerful and slippery as I believe, then I give you until our planned attack at U.A., whenever that may be, is."

The most dangerous man in the world leaned forward, scarred face wrinkling at the edges. "By then, doctor, I expect to have them either working for me, or dead after I take their power. This is your job, I hope you realize what failing entails for you and your family."

The doctor whimpered out a hurried affirmative and scurried out the door. All For One scoffed. How such a proud man could become so cowardly when faced with someone stronger, he would never know. The door clicked shut behind his subordinate, and his multitude of sensory quirks slowly whirred to a halt and he was once again left in pitch blackness. It was a shame he couldn't kill the man for not meeting his deadline, but the Nomu he was creating were quite incredible and thus he was far too valuable.

Originally, the supervillain had been planning to simply experiment with the amount of quirks he could make a single person have, which in turn would create mindless beasts to do his bidding. But the doctor and he had realized that certain people and parts of the city were extremely high in ambient quirk energy. They had begun to monitor it in curiosity, and the doctor's research had yielded fantastic results, with the new Nomus being able to maximise their quirk's power.

It was, quite honestly, groundbreaking.

By increasing quirk factors in various ways, a person could be genetically modified to successfully hold multiple quirks and their sanity. More and more quirks were required to make a good Nomu, but he had quirks to spare and they were the most powerful yet. Better yet, one of his quirks was perfect for breaking down genetic and atomic codes to make each generation better than before.

All For One leaned back, satisfied. When an enormous spike had shown up in the ambient quirk energy readings, he figured it had been some type of rogue Nomu, or maybe someone with a quirk similar to his own. Only someone with ridiculously powerful abilities or an immense amount of quirks would create that kind of disturbance, and he was sure that they could work something out, either a partnership or a new quirk for him. Either way, a success.

After all, that level of power would be enough to reshape the fabric of the world.

* * *

Dabi slammed down his glass. "Never heard of him. Why?"

Elric sighed, sliding down in his chair until his heels scrapped the old wood paneling. "That is the person I am looking for. Have you really not heard of him?"

The man shook his head, then paused. "Say…" he wet his lips cautiously, leaning forward amid the general chatter. "I haven't heard that name before… but I have seen the posters, so I checked up on those."

"Posters?" Elric looked surprised, which was odd. With the amount of small-time villains and criminals he talked to on a daily basis, Dabi thought that he would have at least heard of them.

"Oh, yeah, the posters. Honestly surprised you hadn't heard of 'em yet, with how much they get passed around this part of the city. Posters, um…" he racked his brain for words that weren't more than ten letters long, "... for hiring people? Do you know recruitment or propaganda? Yeah, those. They were put up long before you got here."

The teenager wrinkled his nose in distaste. "And what do posters have to do with my looking for someone?"

That brought a small laugh out of him, and he lowered his voice conspiratorially. "Possible everything, if I'm right. So I went to check this thing out, as one does, and guess what I find? Practically no one. This big warehouse down in Kamino, complete with rooms and beds and a whole bar. But there's not a soul there, except for a few guys who flit around during the day. I stayed for two nights, and not once did I see a leader."

"But you would need some type of a leader in order to organize something that would require… recruitment posters."

"Exactly. So I started wondering where this guy could be hiding. I go in, just to look around. This big burly dude comes up to me and starts rambling about me being a new hire or some shit, so I play along and eventually I con him into giving me a tour. Still no boss." Now it was Dabi's turn to make a face. "But we did find one other guy, this little crusty hand boy who acts six but looks fifty, with the body and temperment of a college freshman during exam week. So now I'm listening to Hands McGee go a little cuckoo and rant about some guy he called Sensei. Ultimately, still no leader."

Elric frowned in confusion, leaning back a bit to avoid Dabi's now wildly swinging hands. "So… nothing. Then who would organize this… unless-"

Dabi grinned. "Yep. Turns out I was right, since this nice lady eventually took pity on the 'new hire' and explained some things. They were hiring for an attack on a hero school, specifically U.A. High." His audience looked a bit confused, and he elaborated. "Heroics high school, famous for a lot of things, not really important. What _is_ important is that they said they were attacking All Might."

He paused for dramatic effect, but a slight narrowing of the kid's golden eyes was all he got. "Oh, really? You don't know All Might?!" He was fixed with a deadpan stare at that, and he huffed in annoyance. "Have you never gone on the internet?"

"Actually, I have," he said, way too proudly for a teenager. "I do not have a computer or cell phone though, and so I had to use the library's."

"...you know what, I'm not getting into this. We are _not _talking about him today. The only thing you need to know is that he's ridiculously powerful, and villains have been trying to kill or defeat him for literal decades. If they want an army to defeat All Might, then its a disposable one. And a-"

"-disposable army doesn't need to see the leader, so they can't give up any info if they're captured," Elric finished with a calculating look in his far-off gaze. It wasn't hard to forget how smart and analytical the kid was when he screamed at milk, but now it was really showing through. "I would bet that most of those people do not even know where the base is."

"Exactly."

"So you think this 'Sensei' guy is the person I am looking for?" He shot Dabi an intrigued look. "As in I might be able to discover him if I can follow this group of his?" The scarred man only nodded, and Fullmetal murmured something in his language with a heavy exhale through his nose, rubbing his arm as if in pain.

"Are you okay?"

"Oh, um, yeah," the boy said, looking a bit startled, before relaxing a bit with a little wince of pain. "Just an old injury, acts up in bad weather."

It was silent for a moment, both watching the first little raindrops begin to pitter against the grimy windows.

"...I actually meant to- well, to ask you this earlier, but I got sidetracked. I mean, we know, like, nothing about you. Why are you looking for this guy?"

Elric coughed a little sheepishly. "I- well, he-," he started haltingly, then paused as if gathering his thoughts. "... I am working for someone, you could say, and I need to bring them this man in order to be… paid." He looked a little awkward saying it, and he chose his words very deliberately, but Dabi couldn't be sure if that was due to the language differences or not.

"Oh, so you're on a job, then," Dabi said, trying very hard to not ask who would employ a kid to be a hitman, or why they would choose a kid in the first place, even though it did explain the 'old injury'. "Where are you from?"

He looked a bit frazzled at the sudden change, but answered soon enough. "Amestris." Dabi had never heard of it, and it must have shown on his face judging by the huff he received. "... I suppose you would call it Germany." Now that made more sense, just from the coloring alone.

He was about to ask another question, but Elric's head shot up like a startled rabbit as a woman all dressed in grays walked in, which was a bit odd since they were about ten minutes from closing and people had already started to leave en masse.

Nope, sorry, _girl _dressed in gray, with blond hair and a nasty grin. She didn't even look twice at the bar area and the people sitting there, just striding straight to the back and letting herself onto the roof. Judging from the shouts outside, she must have been escaping someone, and Dabi had to give points for creativity.

"Thank you for the tip on… what do they call itself?"

"Oh, yeah!" Dabi snapped in remembrance, turning back from staring at the door, and almost missed how Elric flinched at the sound. The boy was standing with his mask on, probably to go outside and scare away some loiterers and drunks who tried to stay past closing, which meant he needed to go soon too. "I almost forgot to tell you, because it was so stupid. They called themselves the League of Villains."

* * *

_The storyteller sighed heavily, sitting down to look down on his listener. _

"_In the end, it doesn't matter. That tale is just a story, a cautionary tale for mothers to tell their children when they misbehave. 'Don't end up like him,' they say, and the kids become still with fear until they forget and go right back to playing their carefree games."_

_The listener sits up too, sending one last look at the glowing sky. "Why doesn't it matter?"_

_He turned to him, face somewhere between a smile and a grimace. "The story is false, anyway. The closer to the sun you get, it actually gets colder in our atmosphere. His wings would only have failed if he flew too close to the water. The higher you fly, the safer you are. No one can touch you, everyone always watches the one who flies the highest and dares to go where none have gone before."_

* * *

It wasn't that Shouta wanted to go back to the bar. Hell, that was one of the last things he possibly could have wanted. And yet he continued to find himself back here, even if it was chasing down a high schooler with a blood quirk and a penchant for violent murder. From a rooftop half a block down, he just managed to see the person he had talked to a few days ago shoo away a few lingerers out of the alley, and suddenly a thought struck him.

He couldn't tell exactly how old they were, but it didn't look older than the incoming first years. Pulling out his phone, he sent a quick text to Nedzu with their basic characteristics, asking him to keep a lookout.

He looked back, watching the other teen he'd seen leave with a wave and a laugh to the golden haired boy. Something wasn't-

_Ding_

That… wasn't good. Nedzu always took time to research, to calculate before responding with any kind of an answer. Nedzu didn't just _guess._ A quick look at his screen confirmed his suspicions.

_King Rat: That is the person who is being watched on vigilante charges? Do you have any more information? I need you to respond quickly, Aizawa. What is the quirk, the name?_

_depresso espresso: I don't know. I haven't seen their face at all, I only know where they're working and living. If I get more information I will send it to you, but for now there's nothing._

_King Rat: Intriguing. Applications are going to be coming in soon, it's only nine months before school starts. If they apply I can run a search and we could possibly get more information. I might decide not to look, however, this is you investigation, you should finish it._

_depresso espresso : Patrons at the bar they work for called them Fullmetal. I can't get too much more info while doing my classes though, so if you need anything else be sure to tell me soon or assign someone else._

_King Rat: It is three in the morning, Aizawa. Go to sleep. You have class tomorrow, or did you forget?_

Shouta scoffed, silently enjoying the pre-dawn city breeze in his hair as he crouched on top of the building. Nedzu seemed to catch on to his relentless expulsion method pretty quickly, since even though he didn't have students this year he was still teaching around the school and filling in as a substitute or tutor. It was honestly unfair.

He pocketed his phone, not deigning Nedzu with a reply. A glance down and across the street showed him an empty alley, so he cold assume his target had finally gone inside to sleep. Seriously, they must have an energy quirk with the way they stayed up all night and yet Shouta saw them wandering the streets during the day, poking into libraries and stores and other back-alley bars.

But however he denied it, it was still three A.M., and he did need to wake up in about two hours. Goodie.

* * *

"_But wouldn't there be less oxygen too?" the helpless the atoner the bargain the listener asked the one with a confused look._

"_Oh, I said his wings wouldn't fail, not that he would survive. Fly too high, and you can't breathe. You choke yourself on your own ambition, go any further and you would no longer have the strength to flap your wings, to even keep aloft. You would black out before you hit the water. Not only that, but the higher you go, the harder you fall."_

"_Remember, boy, being in the sky is dangerous, if you're alone. But my little al~chem~ist will never leave you truly alone, will he?"_

_The Truth paused contemplatively. The boy had already been away for a few weeks and not much has happened, it was getting bored… "Say, Alphonse Elric, would you like to watch?"_

_Their guest nodded cautiously, expecting them to name a price, but when it didn't he grew more excited._

_Huh. That was always an option. Truth had to say that they liked Edward Elric, liked his tenacity and willingness to play by its rules. It would so hate to see him die…_

_A choice, then. And wasn't that just life?_

* * *

A light knock on the wood was the only warning he got before Ijiwaru barged her way in. Edward was starting to get droopy after he didn't sleep yesterday, but he could still make out her disapproving stare.

"You need to go to sleep, Elric." At least she had the sense of mind to not scream it out for the whole city to hear. Small mercies. She was still glaring at his lack of reaction, so he forced his numb fingers to uncurl from around his pen and blearily opened his mouth to respond.

"No, no, you don't get to talk. You've been running on empty, boy, time to go to bed. What are you even working on this late at night?" She leaned over his desk, her lavender pixie cut casting a dark shadow on his strewn about papers. Edward didn't have much room to begin with, but he had alchemized himself a desk as soon as he could, figuring he would need it. Turns out he was right.

She stared with unhidden curiosity at his forms, namely the six or seven application forms for different hero schools around Japan. She picked one up, squinting at it in the low light. Edward's back ached from the odd posture, and it protested loudly as he made an ineffective swipe for the… either the Shiketsu or Ketsubutsu one, he was too tired to tell.

"Gibe id baag," he slurred, finding Japanese to be particularly difficult after so long staring at it's unfamiliar writing systems. Ijiwaru only sighed, but she did move back far enough for him to stretch out his back and numb tailbone

She made no move to force him to go to sleep, so he took another look at the paper-strewn space. "You know," she started, a bit slower than usual, "When Ryōsei told me you mentioned applying to hero school, I didn't think you were serious. Or that you were applying to so many." She grimaced with a distaste for paperwork even greater than Mustang's.

Edward's brain was still a bit fuzzy, but he could see the honest confusion on her pale features. "Yeah, um…" He yawned before he could finish, but she seemed to get what he was trying to say.

"Keeping your options open, smart," she commented, yawning in concert with him and stretching out her thin figure until her hands brushed the ceiling. "Just get to sleep soon, I can't have a worker who falls asleep on the job!" With a toothy chuckle she left his room, closing the door softly at her heels. He was left alone in silence.

He reached over to switch off his light, but paused, eyes just catching on the U.A. form he'd gotten from online. Most of it was filled out, but the clean white paper mocked him with its empty, unanswerable spaces.

_Name: Edward Heiderich _

Like hell he was going to use his real name, and a simple online search had given him a trove of common German names.

_Place of Origin: Munich, Germany_

_Age: 15_

That one had also taken some digging, to find the average high school entrance age, and he was already lying about his name, his age wouldn't make too much of a difference.

_Place of Current Residence: Musutafu, Japan_

_Quirk:_

That one was left completely blank. He knew that Truth said to put it down as Atomic Manipulation, but for some reason that just rubbed him the wrong way. He supposed he would need to come back to that one, but it rested heavily on the back of his mind. It was left blank on every document, as was the Reason for Application and Optimal Costume Design.

He groaned it frustration and slammed his face on the desk. He had not the faintest clue of what to put on either of those too, but for a completely different reason. For the reasoning, well, he can't exactly say he just wanted the school's resources in order to find a massive supervillain he needed to kill. That was a good way to _not _get accepted. As for the costume, it was simply that his preferred outfit was currently associated with a vigilante, who just happened to be very illegal.

Ugh.

After another five minutes of staring at his desk and contemplating throwing himself out the window, he finally flicked off the lights and rolled onto his bed. The dark ceiling shimmered with moving shadows from the lights outside and the hustle of city life just beyond his window. He squinted at his stopwatch, which read just after five. It was far too late- er, early?- to be figuring out his problems as he lay in an illegal bar in the middle of a city he had first laid eyes upon a month ago. Truth, his brain hurt.

He fingered the stopwatch as he held it over his head, getting glimpses of the cool metal as he traced his flesh fingers over the intricate military design. Even after all this, the wars, the fighting, it was still working, still chugging along with that near-silent tick tick tick and comforting weight in his pocket. His stiff right arm flopped across his forehead on top of his blankets, and he had to marvel that his automail was still working too, even as the plate connections threatened to tangle up his hair as it splayed across his rock-hard pillow. He wasn't sure whether to thank Truth or Winry, but it was impressive nonetheless.

A lazy roll onto his side gave him a nice view of the cracked walls, the ones he'd promised to fix someday when he had somewhere else to stay. As much as he'd like to deny it, Edward had grown attached to these odd people and this crappy old bar. He could almost hear Al yelling at him to go to sleep, and started imagining all of his friend's and coworker's reactions to his situation. Havoc would be laughing with Breda at the hilarity, Hawkeye would be way too protective over him, Winry would be screaming about not breaking his automail, Mustang would be smug over how he could do a better job. '_Fullmetal', _he'd say, '_looks like you really can't do much. Is the little Fullmetal Alchemist too proud to ask for help?'_

He thought brought a grin to his lips, even as he dragged a hand down his face slowly until his eyes were again exposed, staring sightlessly at the walls. He let out a puff of air.

_Fullmetal. _Hagane no. Literally, it translated to steel, or Alchemist of Steel. And in Japanese, alchemy was an odd word since it was so uncommon. Full of syllables, so out of place in this era of quirks and technology. He… he was ancient, in all reality. Outdated, unused, unneeded. So was alchemy, since everything he could find showed it being a useless dead art from long ago that had little to do with Amestris' version. There, alchemy was a commonplace word. Everyone had at least heard of it, it was essential for a lot of things, just as quirks were now but not as polarizing.

He sighed in the dark, as the little flashes of light from his covered window carefully illuminated his weary face. Someone shouted outside, but it faded off quickly. Almost… He sat up in bed, flicking on his light. It was almost a little too quickly. He carefully pulled his coat back on to cover his arm and grabbed his gloves, slipping them on with his shoes as he carefully looked out the window. He didn't see anything immediately, but the scream had been close.

A shadow flickered at the end of the alley, and Edward cursed in Amestrian as he started to overbalance putting on his shoes. The movement stopped, but now his curiosity absolutely would not let him go back to sleep. A muffled sound finally convinced him, and he sent a mental apology to Ijiwaru as he quietly opened his window and climbed out, dropping the ten or so feet to the ground with a roll. There was still a bit of a clanking, but he was really hoping whoever it was would just think it was a cat or something and not pay attention.

The sounds paused, and he held his breath, then released it when they started up again. It reminded him… He blanched, eyes quickly shooting open. Oh, please let it be anything but that. If he walked in on that… oh Truth, he would boil his eyes right out of his skull. Fuck the mission- gosh, why did he phrase it like that! Shit shit shit goddamn this whole thing. The only functioning part of his brain, the parts not filled with screaming sirens and a chorus of much more colorful _nope nope nope_'s, yelled at him to just climb the wall again, slip back inside and go to bed, just forget about all of this.

He was about to do the smart thing and listen to it, but an itty-bitty voice in the very back of his head that sounded eerily similar to his brother whispered that someone might be in trouble, he should at least go check it out.

Ah, fuck it. The adrenaline wasn't going to let him go back to sleep now anyway. His scrubbed at his burning face with his gloved hands, then paused in sudden realization. He didn't have his mask. Whatever it was- _stop it brain, he needed to think- _was getting closer and louder, he didn't have enough time to go back up, get it off his desk, and come back down again. Silently swearing even more profusely than before at his inner Al, he raced over to one of the dumpsters and formed a new one, jumping behind the dumpster and fitting it onto his face just in the nick of time. Two arguing people rounded the corner, and all of his mind was filled with relief that it wasn't what he'd feared.

"-course he was there, assface! What did you expect, a fucking hero would catch the bastard before I would?" Edward was really pushing it today, the unfamiliar accent of a brand new language was certainly not doing any favors for his tired brain. The other one- a girl, maybe?- scoffed at the guy who'd spoken, as if finding the whole thing ridiculous.

"I never doubted you'd get him, I just wanted proof," she huffed out. She gave off too many Lust vibes to put Ed at ease, and he wasn't one to underestimate women, but the guy seemed to not take her too seriously. "So, where is he? I heard a bit of the fight earlier, so I know you're finished. You still need half the money, and I need him."

"Ah, ah, ah, the money first. You really think I'd just hand my catch off to some bitch before I've gotten paid?"

"You really think that I'm stupid enough to just give my money to some back-alley murder fucker before I've gotten my prize? How much of a shithead can you get, honestly." She took a drag from a cigarette, and Ed fought not to cough. He poked his head around the edge just enough to see them, and noticed a large squirming bag on the ground. It seems they both noticed it's movement too, and the woman took a step back.

"Ugh, so unprofessional. You didn't even knock him out? I shouldn't even be paying for such a sub-par job." And off they went again. The bag continued to squirm, and now he could hear muffled shouting. The woman walked closer to where he was hiding while the man kicked the bag. He started saying something, but Ed was more preoccupied with watching her then figuring out his accent.

She gently brushed the ground as she passed him, rippling the concrete as she coaxed it to move. A small briefcase was pushed to the surface with a little shudder, and she came to a stop right underneath his window. He couldn't see her face, but her high-heeled boots clicked ominously across the pavement as she strode back to the bag and it's watcher. She dragged the back of her uncovered hand over the bag, and it stilled.

Ed hated quirks with a burning passion.

She reached up and touched the man's arm, but Ed couldn't see much after that since they moved a bit more towards the mouth of the alleyway, probably to talk about prices. Fortunately, that meant they left the bag unattended. Why was it always stealth with these things? Maybe he could ask someone to make him a muffler for his arm and leg… No, focus. The sun was going to be up before too long, he didn't want more people coming by and seeing this kidnapping in progress. And judging from the arguing, this could turn into a fight and get ugly real fast. He felt like bashing his head against the wall. _Fine, fine._

Creeping forward, he inched his gloved hand toward the bag carefully. Neither of the villains noticed, too busy getting more and more heated in their discussion over price. He gently wrapped his left around a corner, getting ready to drag it back over to him. But there was a problem.

Ed was crouched down. The bag held a fully grown man. Ed was not a fully grown man. There was a logistics issue here, as in it was very difficult to drag or lift someone much heavier than you with any type of speed or stealth. It wasn't impossible for him to lift, but it wouldn't be fast or quiet or easy, and more importantly it would be very hard for him to lift it through his second story window. Solution: take out the man and woman first.

He couldn't let her touch him, that much was obvious, but he really had no clue about what the man's power was. And he couldn't endanger the victim either, so he was at a severe disadvantage. But on the other hand…

His head poked over the edge of the dumpster to pinpoint his attack, then ducked down again and he clapped. The usual blue light and clapping noise drew their attention, but it didn't matter as two stone hands flowed their way out of the concrete. The newly-formed fingers curled around the shocked villains and the woman dropped the briefcase in surprise. Before it could hit the ground, a gloved hand snatched it away. It was heavy enough, so he transferred it to his right arm.

The wide-eyed woman screeched at him behind the stone finger as Ed stalked forward, still annoyed by _these idiots not letting him sleep. _Her hands were pinned at the wrists and unable to touch anything, so she was safely secured. As for the man, whose quirk was still unknown, Ed had covered him up to the eyes in concrete, completely immobilising him and hopefully neutralizing his quirk. Even so, he walked forward carefully with his hands inches apart and an array shining in his mind. The guy looked normal enough, but he wasn't going to take any chances.

"Look, guys. It is almost sunrise. I do not know how long you have been awake, but for me it has been several days since I have slept. I am quite pissed about you fuckers making me get up when I was just about to fall asleep." He paused a few feet from the now furiously screaming woman, but she fell silent when he shifted his arm into a blade that stopped inches from her exposed throat. He would never kill her, but she didn't have to know that.

He paused for effect, as both the villain's eyes were now pinned on the sharp, gleaming metal. "So. I suggest you work with me, before I do something I might regret."

* * *

He flopped into bed- _finally-_ about thirty minutes later, after scaring the absolute shit out of both of his captives and then taking all three people involved and dropping them off nicely in front of a police station. He'd set the man in the bag free, and boy was he not happy about being kidnapped. Ed had left both of the now thoroughly tied up people with him, figuring the dude would help police with filing a report. He had been very thankful to Ed, which was very appreciated, but had also promised not to give too many details about his savior.

He paused. That… that was his first actual vigilante-ish act. Huh. The one from last week didn't count, not really, since that was just for information (And cash, but he needed food money. That was a fun conversation, when Ryōsei had to explain their currency to him.).

_Really, Al. I wish you could be here, since when I come back for you, you'll never believe me if you don't see it for yourself._

As the boy rolled onto his back and stared with tired golden eyes up at the ceiling, the sun just cresting the horizon and beginning to paint the new buildings in pinks and blues, another set of sleepless eyes fills out a U.A. application on a desk halfway across town, green irises bouncing with excitement even as he gets ready for his morning jog.

Two bloodshot eyes blink tiredly at a phone screen in a small apartment next to the school building, just now falling into bed only to awaken an hour later and get ready for his job with a steaming pot of coffee at the ready.

A pair of cerulean eyes look out a window into the rural countryside of her hometown, clueless about the shifting paths, clouds casting dimply shadows on the rolling green hills as the sun and moon still in their path across the blue, blue sky.

Black irises freeze in place at the moment of activation, faded from their usual rich color by the lifelessness of the blind and exhausted, as his subordinate with her own grievous wounds holds him up, her mouth spread wide in an agonizingly still imitation of a fearful scream. Both of them were bathed in frozen blue light that crackled harmlessly across their skin in a gentle hold, his face twisted in confusion and dawning horror, hers in the fear and anguish that mirrored many others'.

A matching golden set, more bronze than his brother's, flit back and forth as if watching a tennis match, seeing what has happened and what is happening and what will happen with a broken expression as he watches his brother's trials to return him to his rightful place.

And watching over them all was an eye-less face that held a perpetual grin, seeing everything play out never ending and yet never beginning, as its favorite puzzle pieces slipped together like gears in their vast white machine.


	3. i am lost

Tomura watched on silently (as silently as he could, at least) from the cameras. Sensei requested that he leave, but he'd never said he couldn't eavesdrop.

The golden-eyed kid was standing now, mask on the floor, making blindingly obvious the young age and lack of experience controlling his emotions. His pale features were narrowed and pinched into an impressively animalistic snarl that would have made any lesser man flee from those sharp canines and cat-like golden eyes.

"Fuck no! Bastard," Fullmetal growled out through gritted teeth. "Even if I knew, I wouldn't tell you, jackass. Let me. The fuck. Go. Before I make you."

Sensei looked on calmly, undisturbed by the loud and brash threats. "Ah, my boy. Don't be so crass. You're free to leave at any time. Besides, it is… unwise and unbecoming of you to make threats you can't follow up on."

"Liar. I'm not stupid. If I leave now, you're just going to follow me home and catch me later, maybe kill some of my friends in the process." Those eyes narrowed even further, just little rage-filled slits. "And you're right, I shouldn't write checks I can't cash. Good thing my bank account is full then, huh?"

"Hmm. True, but I doubt you have quite near enough money to cash that _particular_ one. Looks like it will bounce after all." The vigilante was quiet, and Sensei smiled as much as he could. "See? A nice, civil conversation. At least hear me out before you go."

The boy sat down warily, but he was much calmer than before. Tomura was glad for that, at least. He knew Sensei could take care of himself and he would never dream of trying to protect him, but he'd rather not deal with a fight.

"Let's see… you're a vigilante, right?" The kid nodded, obviously willing to listen at least. "May I ask why that is, before we begin?"

"It's simple, really. Becoming a hero takes too long and is far too restricting, but being a villain is very… is edgy the word? Yeah, edgy, and I refuse to kill."

All For One cocked his head a little bit in though. "I see. Well," and here he paused to gather his thoughts, "what do you think of this society, this world, my little anomaly?"

The vigilante was more loose now, and answered after a second to think over his answer. "I think that it's… stifling, I suppose. Unjust. Unfair."

"There you go." Sensei spread his arms magnanimously. "Now what if I gave you a way to change that, without killing? Or maybe just disposing of _one_ person. One false symbol to create a new world. How about it? With your obvious power you can help me fix everything. Be a true hero."

There was a moment of silence. Tomura was ready to turn away from the cameras, having seen this many times over. A wonderful deal to someone pushed out of society, and they always took it. But then there was laughter.

"Oh, man. That was the most fun I've had in ages," the kid said, still chuckling. "Alright. A few things to thank you for, before we begin. First, thank you for letting me know why you were after me; second, that you are in fact who I'm looking for; and third, telling me just how much you know about me."

In the blink of an eye he was standing, the crackle of sparks highlighting the sudden blade where his arm had been. He took a ready stance.

"But I think you misheard me, you baked-potato looking fuckmunch. I'm only not a hero because becoming one takes too much time, and I don't give two shits about your society. I'm here to kick your ass, drag you back to face Truth, and go home. Let's start the first step, shall we?"

* * *

_9 months earlier..._

A stack of papers slammed down onto his desk before he had even sat down, and Naomasa raised an eyebrow as he settled into his chair. He blew over his coffee to cool it off, and looking over the top page, he almost regretted coming to work today.

"An incident report? This early in the morning?"

Sugara collapsed into the chair opposite and slammed her head into the desk with enough force to shake the whole thing in lieu of a response. Judging from the timestamp, the poor woman must have been woken up before dawn to come deal with it, and he knew for a fact she had been on late shift last night, too. She probably hadn't slept a wink. He silently held out his coffee, and she eagerly lifted her head to drink about half of it before burying her face in her arms again. Naomasa took a small sip in understanding. So it was one of _those._

Her voice was muffled by the wood, but he could still hear her tired voice well enough. "Two kidnappers and a kidnap victim were dropped off at the station very early this morning." As she spoke, he picked the first sheet off the pile and began to read. "The kidnappers were restrained, and the kidnap victim denied any involvement in detaining them. He said… he said he was rescued, but we're absolutely positive that no heroes were in the area at the time when he said he was attacked."

"Have you checked with the underground heroes?" he asked with a frown, finishing off his first cup. Judging by the way this was starting today, it wouldn't be his last.

She lifted her head just enough to give him a sleepy glare. "Of course we did, idiot. My team isn't that incompetent." He coughed sheepishly, and she huffed, slamming her head back into the table before continuing. "So, yeah. That's a thing. Now everyone's thinking vigilante, but the dude refused to give any details on appearance. Probably thankful to whoever it was that saved him."

At this part she shifted so her chin was resting on the crowded table, giving him a small relieved smile. "Thankfully, the kidnappers weren't so reluctant."

"So you got a description?"

"Um…" Now it was Sugara's turn to look sheepish. "Not- not exactly." Naomasa gave her a look, and she frowned at him. "They were willing to talk once they regained consciousness, of course, but they didn't have much of anything useful. Said they weren't sure if it was a boy or a girl, just that they seemed young. Apparently wearing a mask, so nothing on eye color or skin, and no way for us to get a sketch artist out here anyway, so-"

He held up a hand to stop her, staring intently at the papers he was holding. "You said… unable to determine gender?"

"Yeah. Both witnesses said that they were very short, but with long blonde hair tied back in a braid. I think the term used by the woman was 'golden', actually, but same thing. The voice was deep enough to be a teenage boy, or a college-age, early-twenties girl. Costume was red coat, black clothes, white gloves, and boots. Mask was metal and intricately made. No skin was shown, so that's out, and while they supposedly have an accent, they didn't speak enough to determine exactly where it was from."

Naomasa listened intently to her statement, but his eyes were fixed onto the report in front of him. "What concerns me most is the… well, the quirk aspect. This report says that neither of the witnesses discussed the quirk, and when asked about it, were noticeably hesitant to talk and didn't go into much detail. Is there a reason for it that we know of?"

She sighed again, long and heavy. "I'm afraid not. The only things we know are that they're skilled enough to capture two adult villains with dangerous quirks-"

"Hang on. What I'm looking at here doesn't mention the perps' quirks."

"That's odd…" she said with furrowed brows, skimming the page. "Yeah, that… shouldn't happen. I'll work on that, but for now I know that the woman has a powerful touch-based persuasion quirk that even works on inanimate objects. The man has poisonous darts on his shoulder blades that can extend at will and contain a dangerous neurotoxin. The kidnap victim, meanwhile, has a much less powerful jump boost. I really don't know why it wasn't put on file…"

He waved her off. "It's fine, Sugara, I can take care of it. You look dead on your feet, go take a nap in the breakroom. I think Shironoto left a pillow in there, you can probably use that."

"Aw, that's sweet of you. Good luck Nao-chan."

As she left with a tired thanks and a yawn, Naomasa couldn't help but feel a little anxious. Both of the attackers had extremely dangerous quirks and were regular villains. From the report, while the kidnappers had skipped the details of the quirk that took them down, they had both complained at length over the fact that they were immobilised before they even noticed the vigilante. Musutafu had tons of vigilante reports every year, but most of them were one off things. Not only was this guy skilled and had a good quirk, the costume made him think that maybe this one might stick around.

Which meant more time in the station trying to hunt them down. Absolutely fantastic.

Naomasa got up to get another cup of coffee, a newly-formed headache already pounding at his skull. The percolator whirred to life, and before long the scent of coffee filled the air. Waiting for the machine to pour him a cup, the detective cast his gaze around the room, and since not too many people were in yet, it was still blissfully quiet.

After about five hours and four cups of coffee, a new pot was done brewing just before lunch break, and a few officers wandered in to grab a cup for themselves. Naomasa slipped out of the group and back towards his desk, leaning against the edge of the old wood as he stole whatever time he could out of the chair. His papers lay scattered around after a few hours of frustration at his newest headache, and he put his mug (It said #1 Dad-tective on it, it was a joke gift from the archive room for Christmas two years ago. At first he had hated it, but now he found himself using it more and more,) down so he could tidy up a bit. The room was starting to fill up with a bit more chatter as more and more people streamed in to leave for lunch.

One of his newer papers sat delicately on top as he tapped the pile against the desk to straighten all the pages out. He glanced over it curiously, not fully remembering it, but after a moment paused. It was a vigilante report from a few weeks ago that had been caught on camera with no eyewitnesses. The footage was grainy and colorless, but he had printed out a few screenshots that had the best view of the incident and attached them to the file.

His eyes widened. The pictures may have been black and white, but the person in the picture was wearing a blurry cloak, dark underclothing… He flipped through a few more pictures before stopping on one. It was the vigilante mid-tackle, braid straight out behind them and metal mask gleaming with-

Half of his newly tidied up papers flung themselves off his desk to get away from his mad dive across it as he frantically shuffled through papers to get the new incident report from this morning. Sure enough, the descriptions matched, and Naomasa felt his face split into a wide and uncharacteristically goofy grin.

The chatter in the room had stopped abruptly, and in the near silence a timid voice called from the back. "Uh, Tsukauchi? You… you okay, dude? You seem…" They left the sentence unfinished, but he felt a bit too giddy to care. He knew that Eraserhead was working on the other case, so if they were connected then he might be able to just pass it off to him.

And if Aizawa had a lead, then they had struck gold.

The noise in the room slowly started up again as he hurried away towards the front. Naomasa was silently praying that Aizawa had a lead (or could just take the case, why were the vigilante cases always given to him?!) and the free time to pursue it. The detective knew that Eraserhead didn't have classes, so he could just call now.

He slipped into a little unused break room that was fairly quiet, but just as he hit the call button he realized what time it was, and resisted the urge to slam his face into the refrigerator.

* * *

"What."

Okay, so maybe Shota wasn't having the best morning. He probably deserved the migraine from getting a grand total of two hours of sleep and then having to deal with kids, so he wasn't going to complain (too much) about that, but how the fuck did he deserve getting an obnoxiously loud phone call on his lunch break?! It woke him up for fuck's sake. Fuck.

This time not being around students has really dumbed down his repertoire of swear words. It was both a fact and a running joke among U.A. faculty that teenagers were the most creative people on Earth when coming up with insults.

Cementoss was currently winning from when he overheard a second year call a villain 'an elementary school water fountain that spews fucking Drano, you lima bean looking fuckmunch' after they blew up the train station and made her late to school. With more profanities.

Fuck. The phone. Was still in his hand. There was someone calling him. Why were they calling him. They needed to stop.

"What. The fu-...hell do you want." He just barely stopped from swearing (too badly) at someone who might be a parent, because he kind of needed his job. Unfortunately, he got someone both better and so, so much worse than some entitled parent.

"Oh, sorry if I woke you up."

"_Yes, _you woke me up, asshat," Shota growled into the speaker, and there was no reply. Fair enough, he had been just a touch rude there. He forced himself to breathe and think rationally for a moment. He really shouldn't just swear at Tsukauchi, this might actually be important. "... I apologize, that was unbecoming of me. Why are you calling."

A light hearted chuckle filtered over the speakers, and he relaxed a bit. Seems the police officer wasn't deterred by his rudeness, thankfully. "Then I apologize as well. I'm actually going to make this as fast as possible, as I'm sure such a busy man as you has a lot to do." The teasing tone shifted a bit as the voice paused, seemingly collecting his thoughts. "Look, Aizawa… Right now I'm sending you a few files from an incident this morning related to a case you're on."

One of his most used burner phones buzzed right on time, and he fished it out from his pockets. He knew what was coming next and he stayed on the line, as much as he wanted to toss the phone off the seventh floor balcony.

"Let me guess. It's the new vigilante, isn't it?" Tsukauchi made a small sound of agreement with the tone of someone glad there was another person sharing his pain. Shota may have borrowed a bit from that second year in the impressively long obituary he was composing in his head, but who could blame him? Only a few incidents and this was already a major thorn in his side. He almost wished he had students this year so he could pass off the investigation with a good excuse.

His phone buzzed again, and he reluctantly opened the email. This time he was the one to draw in a thick breath to collect his thoughts. Bloodshot eyes scanned the incident report once, then twice as he fully processed the situation.

"So you're assuming this isn't just a two-off thing then." When he spoke, all the light-heartedness was gone. This just wasn't a time for playing around. Vigilante acts were surprisingly common, but a regular vigilante was extremely dangerous, for more than one reason. The detective seemed to share his opinion.

"I'm afraid so. Our only chance right now is to get a pin on them and catch them before the media finds out. If that happens, we might as well give up. There are more vigilante supporters in this area than police officers, and most wouldn't hesitate to withhold information or help them escape," Tsukauchi confirmed. "Do you have any leads at all? I heard that you tracked them the first time because you were in the area, did you find out where they're living or operating from?"

"Better. I actually interacted with them, and… they're young. I'm assuming teenage boy, but I could see early-twenties woman too. Definitely foreign. I didn't get to see the eyes, but the other patrons at the bar they supposedly work and live at called them Fullmetal. The pronouns used by the bartender were male, but we can't be positive those are correct."

The police officer sighed through his nose. "So pretty much nothing. Our witnesses said pretty much the same thing. And we can't just storm in there either, they're at a serious flight risk. Can you at least keep a lookout, try to… I don't know, you said you've interacted with them? I guess just keep doing that."

Shota rubbed at his face with one hand. "Yeah, yeah. I'll call you back in a few days if I get anything more, but for now…" he lifted the phone away from his cheek to check the time, "... my lunch break is almost over."

The detective said his goodbyes and the call ended with a final beep. He sat down heavily, pillowing his head with his capture weapon and staring into the fake wood grain of the table. It was a bright, hot day outside, so the industrial lighting was faint against the off-white tiles. He could hear the door gently creak open and Ectoplasm's distinctive footfalls. They paused after a moment before slowly getting louder.

He lifted up his head and mustered up one of his best glares, which according to Nemuri was somewhere between Endeavor getting ranked second for the seventeenth time and her mother. The fellow teacher wisely backed up and hurried out of the room, closing the door with a soft click.

He needed another nap.

* * *

The phone rang a few weeks later, and Shota didn't even bother looking at it as he answered, eyes either glued to the screen or searching desperately for his house keys. The blaring noise of his bad-quality television was not helping, and he could barely hear Tsukauchi's voice over the ringing in his ears.

He wasn't surprised. There had been reports of at least six more incidents since the first semi-public case.

"Eraserhead, you need to turn on the news."

* * *

"_-shit shit shit fuck- up and over, _oh fuck no_, god _fucking _damn it, you bastard of a- yep thats another one, holy mother of- _ah shit _that can't be good-"_

Edward slingshotted himself around a streetlight with one hand, kneeing the… was that a man? Whatever, kneeing the man in the solar plexus. The dude behind _him _tripped over the gagging body, but recovered quickly enough to hurriedly roll right, just narrowly missing the gloved fist where his head had been only seconds before.

Another one of the guys still standing growled at him from where his goons were loading up the van with cash, abnormally large eyes locked onto the swiftly moving blonde. Ed's rapid fire cussing in Amestrian, a few Japanese swears thrown in there for some extra flavor, probably wasn't helping.

He ducked and flipped backwards, landing on his hands so that shark-head just missed grabbing him by inches. Another quick push off of his palms slammed his feet into the stomach of a neon-orange guy behind him, who dropped to the ground like a rock, wheezing. His closest attackers dealt with, Ed took the opportunity to catch his breath and wipe the sweat off his brow.

Teacher would kill him if she saw how out of shape he was, but in his defense, he was used to using alchemy to detain people. It was a lot harder forcing himself to not use it, but it was necessary since he was in plain view.

Of course it was just his luck that he had been working at the time when someone tried to rob a bank in broad daylight. He was technically a vigilante, right? So he had just thought 'fuck it, I'll go check it out.' Now the police were on their way, judging from the slowly increasing sirens, and two heroes were already hovering around the edges of the fight awkwardly as they made him deal with their problems.

_Truth _he wanted to hit something. Good thing there were about three convenient faces to smash up. He lowered himself into a fighting stance, double checking that his mask covered his eyes, and began to stalk forward towards the now quite terrified boss and his two remaining minions.

The sun was positively beating down on him, and his thick trenchcoat and black clothes were actually getting pretty hot, but he'd rather be sweaty and uncomfortable than get burned by his own right arm.

The remaining goons and their leader didn't even try to fight him, which was honestly a bit insulting, and simply continued packing up the truck at a frantic pace, trying to stuff it all in before they had to leave. Law enforcement wasn't here yet, but it wouldn't be long, and the streets were still full of civilians. He needed to end this fast.

The claw-fingered guy flung himself in the driver's seat and started the engine, to which Ed bolted forward. He dug his metal fingers into one of the tires, easily deflating it. The next one was about to get the same treatment, but he felt more than heard the neon-orange eyesore come up from behind him and ducked to avoid the sloppy punch.

They traded blows for a few moments, before Ed realized he was just trying to buy time and knocked him unconscious with a well-timed roundhouse. Keeping the spin going, he crouched to knock the feet out from underneath shark-head, who was a bit more competent and managed to leap over his feet. Unfortunately for him, he wasn't fast enough to dodge the resultant elbow to the groin and he collapsed like a wet sack of potatoes.

The squeal of rubber on asphalt interrupted him as he was busy choking out the last minion, so with a muffled curse he swung off the guy's back and pulled them both to the ground. He hit the concrete with a roll and discreetly clapped his hands, pulling a pair of knives out of the cement. The truck wasn't that far away, so he judged it carefully and threw both of them. The wings on the handles probably didn't help with wind resistance, but one just narrowly missed the leader clinging to the back and the other shattered a taillight. Damn it, he had been aiming for the tires.

Either way, they fulfilled their role, and the truck swerved just enough to clip a light pole and spin out. Most of the civilians were evacuated to a safe perimeter by now, and a few heroes were cautiously walking forward to detain the ones he had already incapacitated. Ed stalked over to the leader, who was lying sprawled on the ground a ways from the crash. The one who had been driving scrambled his way out of the car, which was a fantastic choice since he hadn't made it ten feet before the thing exploded, lighting up the already sunny day even more and sending everyone nearby to their knees.

He held up a metal hand to block the searing light from his spotty eyes as he tried to blink the aftereffects away. The general murmur of bystanders increased at the explosion, a wave of heat and paper ash washing over the crowd and blowing Ed's bangs straight away from his mask. Little burnt pieces of paper flitted through the air like raindrops from the still-flaming truck, and there wasn't a cloud in sight so the soot would probably stain the streets for weeks.

See, none of this dimension-hopping stuff, just straightforward fighting. Nothing like the scent of a good explosion in the morning.

Ed looked around, rising slowly off of his knees-

Ah, _shit. _

The bug-eyed leader wasn't as much of a slouch as he thought he was, and managed to completely topple the disoriented vigilante, who managed to roll away and stumble to his feet as the villain tried to stomp his face in. A blade extended from his metal hand with a flash of light, and he charged in, staying low to the ground.

So did the leader, who didn't have much of a defense after Ed brutally slammed his outstretched knee with a devastating axe kick that had the dude flailing backwards in pain. His flesh arm wrapped around bug-eye's neck to swing himself onto his opponent's back and wrap his mismatched legs around the robber's torso. The weight of two metal limbs and another whole body was enough to tip the guy onto his knees.

Edward gently placed the razor-sharp edge of his blade just hard enough to draw blood from his jugular, and the dude went deathly still.

A police officer cautiously crept forward-ah, so they were finally here- and handcuffed the bank robber none-too-gently. Ed moved the blade so the officers could search him, and backed a few feet away, standing by awkwardly as a few other heroes flowed onto the scene to help the first responders take away the villains and stop the fire.

One of the officers turned to him with a smile on her face. "Are you a new hero? Awesome debut, you took out these guys all by yourself. We can't thank you enough for stopping them."

It was pretty common back home to be thanked, but the gratitude in her voice caught him off guard, and he blushed under his mask, nodding as professionally as he could.

He slowly turned to leave, but as he glanced behind him he could see the female officer tilt her head a bit, a crease in her brow as she looked at him curiously.

"Hey- you look familiar. Are you really a new hero?" He frantically nodded his head, braid bobbing at the nape of his neck, but she frowned anyway, not looking convinced. "That's odd… could you be-"

He couldn't pinpoint the exact moment she realized it, since he had taken off the moment he had seen her eyes go wide. A click from behind him alerted him to the gun pointed at his back, so he did the impulsive thing and rolled sideways before darting onto a sidestreet and down a back alley.

The street he had just left was in uproar, police swarming the area as the crack of gunshots faded away. As much as Ed liked fighting, he really didn't want to go toe to toe with the military, or pretty much anyone with a gun that was any type of good shot.

Getting shot fucking hurt, and he hadn't gained a healthy respect for Hawkeye for nothing.

He took a breather in a nearby sidestreet, reducing his mask to half its size so he could actually, you know, see. At this point he was less concerned with someone seeing him than getting shot.

But the thing is, while Ed may be smart, he was also a colossal dumbass, and forgot all about the bane of his existence. Namely the fact that, here, it wasn't guns he had to worry about.

His feet flew out from under him like he'd slipped on a rug, and he was greeted with a disappointed face.

"Got you," said what was possibly the most dead-inside looking person he'd ever seen, and if that wasn't saying something then Edward would eat his boots.

Oh wait, been there, done that. He couldn't stop himself from snorting at the thought, and the guy gave him just the pinnacle of 'are you shitting me right now' expressions. Which was fair, since it must have looked absolutely bonkers from the other point of view.

Just this upside-down vigilante hanging by his feet, wrapped up in what felt like a scarf, staring into the red eyes of what was apparently a pro-hero and laughing.

Eh, he had laughed in the face of God, this wasn't anything new.

Either way, it was not fun to be hanging like this, and once the shock of the situation and the coping humor had worn off, Ed started to thrash around. He knew he wasn't going to get out like this, but might as well make this guy's job even harder, yeah?

His efforts were not appreciated, and the hero made sure to show this by continuing to carry him around by the feet.

They made it back to the main street with no casualties (shame), and the bystanders and police officers all gawked at the site. Another hero grabbed Ed around the middle, and the man that had caught him blinked, his hair settling down around his shoulders.

Ed narrowed his eyes. That hair, those eyes, that dark outfit that was just no fun at all… he looked eerily familiar.

The dude locked black eyes with hi exposed golden ones, and his voice came out as a tired rasp. "What do you want."

Oh, so that's where he knew him from. Ed bared his teeth, causing the edges of his mask to dig into his nose. "You see, fucker, where I'm from it's considered rude to agree to help someone with a problem and then tie them up."

_Fuck he hadn't meant to say that much._

An eyebrow rose, unamused. "Well, where _I'm _from, it's rude to break the law multiple times and then evade capture," and there really wasn't anything he could say to that, was there? "Oh, and before I forget: thanks for showing me your eye color, confirming you're a foreigner, and double confirming that you're the same vigilante that goes by Fullmetal, even if you're not much of a vigilante."

"Not much of a vigilante?!" Ed felt his blood pressure rise at the jab to his self-proclaimed title, something he had spent three hours at the library choosing. You needed a license to be a hero, and that took too long so he would have to work on that later; villain was too dark and evil, fun as it sounded; and being a regular civilian was just plain untrue, even if it led to the least documentation of his existence here.

So, yeah, saying he was a shitty vigilante was like saying Alphonse wasn't the responsible Elric, if he did say so himself. Besides, he liked a good fight.

"I guess you're not much of a hero then, trash bag! I've only been here for a few months, but that's plenty long enough to know all about the top heroes or whatever, and you aren't even in the top one hundred. How many people do you save, asshole?" Oh, his accent was getting better. He really hadn't noticed.

"I better not be in the top one hundred, and more than you, obviously. I only got put on your case because you're not big enough to need anyone better, and I have a track record of dealing with low-rate vigilantes, _just like you._" The dude was still agonizingly calm, but it gave Ed a bit of satisfaction to see him rubbing his hand where he was grabbing Ed's metal foot.

And then the sentence registered, and _he saw red. _"NOT _BIG ENOUGH_?! I'LL SHOW _YOU_ _BIG ENOUGH _WHEN MY BOOTS GO THROUGH YOUR CHEST CAVITY, YOU OVERGROWN PIECE OF POND SCUM! WHO ARE YOU CALLING A-"

The hero currently holding him proceeded to casually cover his mouth with a bit of extra material as he devolved into scattered Amestrian, and the whole procession began to shift over to the police cars on the curb. With all fairness, the paramedics and other officers were doing a marvelous job ignoring the thrashing, tied-up child screaming profanities in an unknown language.

Wait a quick second. He was about to get arrested.

He can't get arrested!

Okay, okay, okay. This was fine. He's been in worse spots before. Alright.

A pale-haired officer began to read him his rights, but he wasn't very concerned with those, seeing as he wasn't going to jail anytime soon. He interrupted her with a laugh.

"Don't bother. Thanks for the practice, but I'll be leaving now!" He shifted through his library of circles, found the one for carbon-infused polyester, and managed to touch his fingers together.

The air around him sizzled with faint crackles of energy, the power circle on his back itching with the sensation of energy flowing from the air, through the circle, then down his spine and arms to the tips of his fingers. The heroes started forward, but before they could reach him he released the energy, circle gleaming in his mind, with a heavy exhale and a toothy grin.

Nothing happened.

A few beats of silence, then the hero holding him chuckled and pushed him into the car. "What was that supposed to do? Come on, you're not going anywhere." The officer who had been reading him his rights laughed quietly as she got in the driver's seat.

"They always think they can get away," she agreed.

A different policeman opened the door to the backseat with a pair of bulky handcuffs (Maybe quirk suppressants? He had read about those briefly.), saying something to the hobo-looking hero who had caught him. After a moment, Ed felt the cloth binding him pull away, though he was far more occupied with panic.

Why hadn't it worked? The equation was balanced and there was certainly alchemic energy- it should've turned the fabric into dust and let him make a hasty escape. But it- _oh._

The scarf wasn't carbon-infused polyester.

God _fucking _damn it.

The uniformed man slid the handcuffs onto Ed's hands, frowning a bit at the noise the metal made against his hand before dismissing it and closing the door. The engine started up with a rumbling purr as they pulled away from the curb.

Then, Ed realized there was a simple solution. "

"Hey, uh, these look like new… quirk suppressants. Are they different?"

The driver snorted. "I don't know what you mean _different_, these haven't been changed out for five years or so now." Her partner in the passenger seat mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like "god knows we don't get paid enough for that", and the woman snorted before continuing.

"Yeah, these are older models. Just the standard quirk-treated titanium… um, what was it again?" She turned to her partner, who looked deep in thought for a moment.

"Uh, titanium… steel alloy, I think. Maybe not. Whatever. Why do you want to know, anyway?" he asked Ed with a raised eyebrow, but paled a bit when golden eyes crinkled up in a large, unseen smile.

"Oh, no reason…" with the array for a titanium-steel alloy in his head, his hands met with a resounding clap despite the bulky metal separating them. The handcuffs peeled away with crackle of electricity and reformed into a metal stake.

The car swerved as the driver reached for her gun, but Ed was faster. Another clap and the window sprayed outwards in an explosion of glittering dust. Before it had even settled, the masked vigilante burst out of the window and hit the ground rolling, covering his side with his arm to prevent road burns.

One of the cops behind him was shouting for backup, two more police cars screeching to a halt behind them. In less time than it took to say 'it wasn't my fault,' he had four guns pointing at him and someone else screaming at him to stop.

Oh, hell no. He wasn't just going to _give up, _that was plain insulting.

He could see another car pulling up behind the ones already there, and… aha! He just needed to stall for a few seconds. Unfortunately for him, a few seconds was a heck of a long time when four heroes were piling out of the newly-arrived car and barreling towards you.

So, Ed did the smart thing.

* * *

Fullmetal was just standing in the middle of the road, looking calmly at the lined up officers by the time Shota arrived. He was out of the car in a flash, vaguely registering North Star and Kesagiriman next to him. They all raced forward past the gun-wielding enforcers, and were about to reach the dangerous vigilante when they held their hands up.

"I surrender!"

What. The fuck.

Everyone around him froze in confusion for a moment, but as Fullmetal made no move to put their hands down, they began to relax.

North Star walked forward, more slowly this time, towards the blonde. "Finally. You've caused a lot of trouble, I hope you-"

From this close, Shota could see golden eyes peeking over the carved metal mask, and he made a mental note of the color. And the way they seemed to be smiling. Oh shit, they were smiling, right?

A loud horn blared from the oncoming traffic across the median, and Shota's eyes widened. He dashed forward, but he wasn't quite fast enough to reach the shorter figure.

With grinning eyes and a goofy salute, the vigilante vaulted over the median and practically bounced off a car's hood, landing on top of the sixteen-wheeler in the next lane over. They waved cheekily at the officers and heroes, saying something that was lost over the wind.

Kesagiriman growled next to him. "After them! We can't let them get away. Send a patrol unit to-"

"It's no use."

The fuming hero turned towards Shota with a retort on his lips, but it died at the deadpan expression on the underground hero's face. "You'll never catch them, they've been evading heroes since they debuted," Shota explained calmly, then sighed.

"No, it's not worth the manpower. Just send a report that we lost them."

* * *

The first thing Dabi said when Elric walked into the back room was, "You're a cockroach."

The kid paused in confusion, triumphant smile freezing in place, halfway through taking off his mask. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me."

"No, I… what?"

From next to him, Ryōsei barked out a laugh. "Crispy critter over here means you're impossible to kill, kid. It's a compliment." The bartender turned to the man. "At least, I think so. Might mean you're a gross bug, hard to tell with this guy."

"Uh, the first one?" Dabi decided to not take that as an insult.

"We've been watching ya," Ryōsei continued, gesturing fondly towards the old, beat-up television all the chairs were arranged around. "Saw what went down. How'd you get away? Staples over here was goin' all mother hen, worryin' about ya and all that."

"I was _not_!"

"Boys!" Ijiwaru practically knocked down the door with how hard she came in, scaring Ryōsei right off the stool. "Why aren't you working? I don't let you stay here so you can sit around, you lazy-ass bitches! Get up!" She paused, finally registering Dabi. "And who let him in?"

Their bartender laughed from the floor. "Oh, lighten up, Iji. He practically works here anyway, we were watchin' the news. Kid over here got himself on T.V., how 'bout that?" They picked up the remote and rewinded it, a blurry image of Fullmetal himself darting across the screen behind a speeding truck.

Ijiwaru paused, then scowled. "First off, I didn't give you permission to be reasonable. Get that logic nonsense out of here. Secondly," and at this she turned to an increasingly pale Elric, "you have two minutes to explain why you're on the news for," she squinted, "'Morning Traffic Update, Pedestrian in Road.'"

"I… um, I mean, it wasn't my fault, really…" he trailed off at the lack of reaction.

The boss rushed forward after a moment of silence, sweeping the smaller figure up with her thin figure. "Oh, I'm so proud of you!"

Dabi swore to all things holy that Elric pulled a very impressive bluescreen at the hug. "What."

She pulled back and set him down. "Your first blatantly illegal act, and they even got it on camera! Such an achievement!" Her eyes sparkled with pride and a bit of sarcasm.

Elric narrowed his eyes comically. "Are you making fun of me?" he said with a bit of a growl creeping into his voice, but he too looked ready to burst out laughing.

"Of course not! Repeat after me: down with the government!"

Ryōsei threw up a fist and repeated her loudly, Dabi did so with caution, and Elric mumbled it under his breath, smiling.

"I couldn't hear you! Let's try this again. Repeat after me: down with the government!"

This time everyone joined in enthusiastically, and the kid was wheezing. "Down with the government!"

"Fuck society!"

"FUCK SOCIETY!" they screamed back.

A knock at the door interrupted them, Shiruko poking her head in curiously, taking in the scene. Elric was on the floor crying from laughing so hard, Ryōsei was well on their way to joining him, Ijiwaru was grinning triumphantly, and Dabi must have looked about five seconds away from a heart attack.

Shiruko ignored this, like only a worker at an illegal back-alley bar or a Walmart's employee could do.

"Iji-san? There's someone out front asking for you, and I need Ryōsei to take their shift soon."

"Yes, yes." The owner sighed, turning back and meeting Dabi's eyes. "I do need you all to start working soon, though. I mean it. I will only hesitate a little bit to kick you out, and that's final."

Both women left, leaving Dabi wondering just where the hell he went wrong in life. Suddenly Ryōsei stopped laughing and turned to Elric.

"Your accent's been getting better. When did you start using the contractions I was teaching you?"

The boy blinked in surprise. "I don't know, it just kind of happened this morning."

"Well, whatever." The bartender threw one arm around Elric's small shoulders and another around Dabi. "How 'bout I show you boys how to whip up a nice cocktail, in celebration of the kid's first 'blatantly illegal act?'"

* * *

It had only been two weeks since the bank robbery. Yes, Naomasa counted. Yes, that was the only thing keeping him sane.

"What do you want," he mumbled face first into his desk, but looked up just in time to catch Muramatsu raise an eyebrow.

"Yeesh, Nao-san, hell warmed over for you, huh?" The fellow officer said with a wry grin, holding out a steaming cup of coffee. Naomasa took it gratefully, barely waiting for the cup to cool before downing it, scalding his tongue along the way.

He hissed at the pain, then paused. "This… isn't coffee. What is this?"

"Oh, yeah. Chief said we were going through too much coffee, so he cut our supply for the week. All we have left is decaf."

"Decaf?!" The detective just barely managed to swallow the mouthful he had, looking at the cup with a new level of disgust.

Muramatsu, the asshole, snickered. "Yee-ep. Looks like no caffeine for you, not until Monday!"

Naomasa stared at the mug, looking just about ready to cry. "But… I can't drink… decaf…" his bottom lip trembled. "It's so gross…"

Sugara laughed loudly from across the room. "Mura, you know Nao-chan can't function without his coffee in the morning! Give him a sip of yours." Tamakawa nodded next to her.

The other officer sighed. "You're no fun. He could stop being such a child about it, and it's not like I was lying about the decaf thing."

"Yes, yes, but you don't have to tease the poor man." Naomasa looked up as she walked over. "This idiot is just being a bully. Yeah, Chief's cutting our coffee, but we still have some left before we run out. Besdes, Aruma's cousin runs a cafe near here and she offered to bring some in for us once we run out."

"Ah, you're a lifesaver." And just like that, the tears were gone. Muramatsu turned to Tamakawa.

"See? This man is a manipulator! Breaks out the crocodile tears to get every kind soul in the office to give him what he wants!"

Sugara chuckled under her breath, reaching up to grab the complaining man by his fourth ear. "Very funny. You're just jealous you can't do the same thing." She began to pull him away, but looked back over her shoulder at Naomasa. "Oh, and a few more papers came in for that case you're working on. The press wants to finally cover the story."

Naomasa blinked, and groaned. "Those vultures. I knew the gag order Chief had on these vigilante cases wouldn't hold forever. It was all we could do to have them limit talking about any sort of vigilante when they covered the attempted bank robbery."

"Well, didn't you get a basic description out of it? Golden eyes, right?"

"No, I'm pretty sure it was yellow, get it right Muramatsu, you idiot."

Tamakawa sat down next to him quietly as the two arguing officers left, giving him a concerned look. "You're doing okay, right? You'd tell me if something was wrong?"

"Yeah, I'm just a bit tired. The Fullmetal case is bigger than I expected."

"Well, as long as you're fine…" The sentence trailed off, but the meaning wasn't lost on him. The cat-headed officer leaned back to watch the comings and goings of other officers, the little bell around his neck jingling softly at every movement, almost unheard under the morning hubbub.

"Have you heard from Eraserhead in a while?"

"No… I wonder what he's up to…"

* * *

What Shota was currently up to, in fact, was not fun. Correction: Nedzu was not fun. None of this. Was fun.

"I'm just asking if you could check the upcoming applications, maybe ask a few informants at other schools, just the usual."

"Hmm." Nedzu sipped his tea agonizingly slowly, and Shota fought to keep his expression neutral. "And what, perchance, makes you think that this Fullmetal person is of school age?"

Calm. Rational. "The obvious lack of height, the accent, the high pitched voice. Most of the investigators on the case have tentatively settled on a teenage boy, which I agree with from past encounters, although the possibility of a late-teenage woman is possible. Besides, checking can't hurt."

"You're right, it can't…"

Nedzu set down his cup with a definite click, pulling out his tablet. "I can look, but I'm not promising results. Applications are only starting to come in, I suggest you come to see the exam, maybe administer it, that should help more. Until then, good day."

It was a clear dismissal, but not an unkind one, and Shota bowed thankfully, leaving and closing the door behind him with a soft click.

Maybe he should go visit that bar again. They didn't have terrible drinks...

* * *

It was a shaky video on a bad quality camera, the holder being jostled by crowds. It was sent in weeks after the bank robbery that had barely made the news, and no one paid attention to it because the news report had cited the robbery as a normal villain vs. hero situation, with North Star taking the credit.

But the video was still there.

Actually, it wasn't even the video that mattered, not really. It was grainy and not zoomed in enough, people showing up as vague colored blobs. All For One wouldn't have given it any thought either, had his head technician not rushed to him that same day with energy readings off the charts.

One of the newer recruits had found the video, or more accurately the audio, and hurriedly turned it in. The doctors had then sent it to their boss, who had dismissed it initially. Good thing All For One had asked to see it anyway, because one audio line had stood out to him.

It had taken multiple hearing and sensory enhancement quirks for him to finally make out what was being said, but once he did it was unmistakable.

A little red and gold figure with a mask, golden eyes just barely visible (according to his doctor), saying something… odd.

'I've only been here a few months.'

He had showed the technicians the audio file and had them look up the energy readings for that day, around that area, and found out that it was one of the biggest spikes so far. Another check at the official reports yielded an interesting little fact about an intervening "bystander" who "helped" detain the villains.

Golden eyes, small stature, long braid…

He would have to send some people out to look for them. Vigilante, that was good. Not quite good, not quite evil. More easily swayed to his side.

"So, Fullmetal, let's see how long this takes, shall we?"

"Boss? She's here."

All For One smiled, his scarred face crinkling with the widest grin he could make. "Yes. Send her in."

A door at the far end of the hall creaked open, quiet footsteps echoing across the tile. The sound paused in front of him. An X-ray quirk mixed with a thermal vision quirk gave him a rough outline of the room, and of the woman in front of him. His smile settled.

"Ah, my dear. Do you know why I've called you here?"

"Who is it?" Right to the chase, as usual.

"You see…" He gestured for the doctor, who gave her a grainy printed-out screenshot of a small, golden eyed figure. "This here, is-"

"Fullmetal…" she breathed out, interrupting him, but he didn't much care. Not with her skills. Eyes he knew from memory were slitted sideways blinked with two sets of eyelids, slow and precise, like a predator.

"Oh, you know him?"

"Of him, yes. He caught one of my contacts, Mesmer."

A shame, that woman had utilized a dangerous quirk. He would have liked to have it. "Hm. Then avenge her."

Those pale blue eyes, so vivid in his mind's eye he could almost see them, narrowed with a tilt of her head, night-vision green hair vibrant even in shades of red and blue.

"How much?"

"Say…" He paused. Of course they both already knew what the price would be, but the old routine was familiar. "How about this. You capture and bring Fullmetal to me, _alive, _and I'll give you another one. Help me out a bit with recruiting and taking down All Might, and I'll give you two. Fair?"

"... Yes."

"Good. Your task starts now."

As she left, the door was held open for an extra moment, another set of footsteps clacking in on the tile and stopping just inside the doors.

"Ah, Giran, perfect timing."

The broker took a few more lazy steps forward. "Now, what would you need her for? Does your little protege need a hitman, or is it for you?"

The arid smoke from his cherry-red cigar flooded the room, and All For One considered what to do. He really shouldn't let anything slip, brokers such as him could easily be bought… but then again, _loose lips sink ships, _and there were quite a few vessels that needed to be brought down.

He smiled, eye sockets crinkling up in a cruel mockery of a warm smile. "Oh, my friend, she has a small… errand, I suppose, that only someone of her caliber could achieve. Of course, I'm paying her quite handsomely."

Giran smiled too, but his heart raced increased, both at the slight to his capabilities and the mention of money. "May I ask what, or _who, _you need someone like Feral to retrieve? People like her are _ever_ so capricious."

"And you aren't?" The heart rate spiked, and the villain made a show of looking disinterested. "But you are right. It's a simple job, hard for someone to mess up. Just a simple retrieval. Say… you haven't heard about the… Fullmetal vigilante, have you? I would appreciate any information."

_Two birds, one stone. Or, more aptly-_

"Old friend, I know everything about everyone!" Yes, he does, one of the reasons he was still tolerated. "But information costs money."

"Done."

"Pleasure doin' business with you. Let's see, Fullmetal… they work at an illegal bar in Musutafu with Iji- ah, I guess you would know her by Typhoon. I would advise against a frontal assault, Fullmetal is a tricky, slippery little bastard with an unknown quirk. I can plant a few regulars, but that'll take time. A few more bucks and I can provide regular updates."

_-whole flock, one bullet._

Perfect.

"Now, for the real reason I called you here… how's the recruitment going?"

_Bang._

* * *

The applications were due in a few weeks, and there were still spots left blank. Ed felt like slamming his head on the desk, but he really didn't want to fix it for the third time that week. The circle providing him with alchemic power was being incredibly tingly and had been for awhile.

"Yo."

He looked up from the _idiotic motherfucking papers _to see Dabi standing in the doorway, a small smirk dancing across his scarred features. "Fuckface," he greeted cautiously. "Why are you here?"

The stupidly-gigantic man pushed off the doorway and walked inside, leaning over Ed's shoulders. "Still working on your applications?"

"Still here? Seriously, why are you here? Did Ijiwaru just give you blanket permission to come in at whatever ass-crack time of day you want? Just leave already, go home."

"Kid, I live in the shittiest apartments this side of Tokyo. On one hand, they don't care that I sometimes sneeze and set the wallpaper on fire, on the other, there's no heat or running water most days. I came here all the time before you got here, and since she adopted you I guess she just gave up and adopted me too."

Ed felt his face heat up. "Bastard. She did _not_ adopt me. I'm not six, you know."

"Oh, oh, right." He put his hands up and closed his eyes, but the smirk stayed. "I forgot, sorry. Little baby doesn't like being called what he is, a tiny, miniscule, itty-bitty _brat_."

This fucker had it _coming. _"You wanna say that to my face, you burnt toast-looking ASSHAT WITH A-"

"_BOYS!"_

The fire playing across Dabi's already-charred skin fizzled out of existence as Ed lowered his arm. They both looked at each other in a silent truce.

_Oh, fuck me._

But no footsteps approached, and they both tentatively started talking again, this time careful to keep their voices down.

"So, uh, yeah. I was just bored and wondering why you were up at nine in the morning, seeing as your hours make you practically nocturnal."

"Oh, it's nine already? Wow."

Dabi gave him a look of thinly veiled concern. "You need to sleep, really. Before you pass out on the job and Ryōsei draws on your face with sharpie, and then Ijiwaru or Shiruko comes to beat you both up."

"I'm fine. Used to long nights researching. Besides, no time for sleep. I need to find a way back to my brother."

"Is that what you're doing?" Blue eyes swept over the papers haphazardly strewn around. "Doesn't look like it."

Ed huffed. "I need to get into a hero school for the information they have. I don't want to be controlled by the government, and I'm definitely not planning on staying until graduation, but until I can get out of here I need their resources. Everyone knows that U.A. has one of the best libraries in the country, and the best information network besides."

"I mean, I understand that, but I think your brother won't be very happy with you if you burn yourself out before you can do… uh, all of that. Very detailed plan you've got there, huh."

"Yeah, but it's not enough."

They sat in silence for a minute, before Dabi smacked his palms together and stood up. "Well, no moping around. You have a lead, right? That All For One guy you think is connected to the League of Villains? We can go check out their operation tomorrow."

"True…" Ed looked one more time over his desk, and the scarred man sighed, pulling on his arm to lead them out.

"Look, you have time. It's a good two or three months until exams, and you have a solid week before applications are due. You need a break, and a good fight can help with that. Get some adrenaline in you. You've only been working and looking for leads- oh, and the occasional 'beating-up-bad-guys' gig you got. How's that coming for you?"

"Uh, pretty well. Wait, weren't you supposed to be helping me with that? Where have you been?"

"I figured you didn't need much help after I got you rolling with the first one," he replied with a nonchalant shrug. "Looks like I was right, with how many cases you've solved this week alone."

By that time they had made their way out to the main area, where a few bartenders were just closing. The last customer stumbled out of the doorway, and Shiruko turned to them with a lazy scowl.

"Hey, bouncer. What the ever-loving fuck type of a shitstorm have you shoved yourself ass-first into now?"

Ed cocked his head like a bird or a cat, confused, as he slipped on his half-mask. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about the fact that two brokers, _two, _have come in here asking about you. At least six people, once they got drunk enough, mentioned that they had heard something about the League looking for you, and one particularly friendly guy mentioned Feral, _so-" _She slammed her rag on the counter, making them both jump, "-what did you do?"

Dabi winced next to him. "Oh, shit. Good luck kid, I like making friends and all, but if you have hitmen after you, especially her, then I'm out."

"Who is Feral?" Ed asked with narrowed eyes.

"Just the most successful hitman in years. Only missed a target once, but that doesn't count since he had a heart attack three days later. Her quirk is a natural predator one, though no one's gotten close enough to find out exactly what."

Ouch. "So if she's after me… it's not good."

"Nope," said Shiruko, popping the 'p' and shoving herself back into the conversation. "The good side, however, is that she's cautious. You have weeks or even months before she makes a move, longer if it's a retrieval mission. Bad news either way though. She won't ever give up."

Ed's brain was running at high speed as he paced in a circle, other two occupants of the room watching him carefully. Never gives up, Feral, the League, All For One, brokers… This was a lot. But if the League was looking for him, then that changed the game.

"If the League really is after me, then I think that proves my theory about their leader, their head. I'm after him, he's after me. He has the advantage since I don't know where he is, but I'm still an unknown for him most likely. Let's see…"

"Wait wait wait." Shiruko looked at him out of the corner of her eyes. "You're after the League, and they're after you?"

"Yeah, it's going to make it hard to avoid them. In two or three months schools will start, hopefully I'll get into a hero one, maybe they can keep me away from Feral." He spun around to face them.

_Hold up._

The visible parts of his face must have paled significantly, since both Dabi and Shiruko gave him concerned looks, but that wasn't important right now. What was he going to do?

"Um, kid? You okay?" Dabi asked slowly, and Ed groaned in response.

"I… I haven't been to school in years, how am I going to survive high school?!"

Dabi narrowed his eyes at the information, and Shiruko scoffed.

"Just get over it. You can survive school if it will keep you alive, I'm sure of it. I'm more worried about you going to hero school and still living here, you have to be really careful on the applications and shit before you bring a hero back here and get all our asses busted. Not sure if that's a worse outcome than Feral, though."

"Have I mentioned yet how stupid that name is? Because it is. It really is."

"Stalling. Also, really, _Fullmetal_? You're one to talk." Dabi scoffed and crossed his arms.

Ed was lost in his thoughts, continuing the conversation on autopilot. "Very funny, but I didn't choose that name and you know it, A-... Dabi_. Dabi._ Avoiding Feral is going to be hard, but not impossible, I'll just have to be careful to hide my… quirk from everyone."

Shiruko was frowning when he turned towards her. "I don't see the problem. If you think you can beat them, then just let them capture you when you're ready and then you can find out where they are. Simple."

"No, that wouldn't work…" Would it? Holy shit, that actually might! He spun towards her with a laugh. "You're a genius! I was overthinking things, I shouldn't be avoiding my targets, I should be chasing them!"

He turned back towards Dabi, his metal mask frozen in a twisted smile with pointed teeth, golden eyes flashing the same color as the sun.

"If they want to catch me, then I guess I'll let them. And then I'll catch them _first_."

* * *

_The gunshot startles the flock, but one bird stays sitting. With all the distractions gone, both of our objectives are clear- mine and the bird's. The easiest path is towards me. I won't even have to move a muscle, after all._

_The bird in my hand is worth every yen._


End file.
